Star Fox: Stranger Lands and Deeper Space
by Disturbed Fire
Summary: Rated T for language, maybe some blood.   Kevin is thrust into a world he didnt know existed, and has to help a hero return to the stars.
1. The Much Hated Introish Thing

_**Heyy guyz! I came up wif th main idea for this story while listening to the song thats probably gunna show up in it sumwhere.**_

[Anonymous POV]

Damn!

My ship is hit!

Shit! Where am I anyway? I don't recognize this system! Does that planet have rings?

OH SHIT! AN ASTEROID FIELD!

[Omniscient POV]

'Damn. Can this class get any more boring?' Thought Kevin.

"Alright class, take out your textbooks and turn to page three-hundred and ninety-four" Said the teacher, Mr. Fagginston.

Kevin rummaged around in his backpack for his book. When he found it he made a face at the cover.  
>'wow, couldn't they have at least put some thought into the title. I mean, not that just plain ol' "Social Studies" isn't working for me. He flipped through his book until he found the page his fellow classmates were reading.<p>

He took one look at the title of that chapter and groaned. It was as if Mr Fagginston had read his mind. The Renaissance. He probably knew more about this era than the textbook writers did. He had had a major interest in this as a kid. He had even made a small patch of chain mail in the forge his friends dad owned. He had burned himself, but hey, he was only seven.

Apparently Kevin didn't even look like he was reading, because soon enough, Mr. Fag (nickname) called on him.

"Alright Kevin, since you look SO interested in this reading, why don't you give us an overview of what this chapter says, hmm?"

Kev, as his friends called him, opened his mouth to make one of his usual smartass answers when he realized he didn't know what the book actually said.

" I - umm... Uh..." the rest of the class started laughing nervously at him, glancing at their teacher to see if he approved. Kevin felt his face flush red and sank low in his chair, letting his long, jet black hair cover his green eyes. Mr. Fag sneered smugly, flipping his head as his medium-long brown hair got in his eyes.

"Right, thats what I thought. Come and see me after class Mr. Sampson."

" Yes Mr. F" He sighed, sinking even lower into his chair, scowling.

The bell rang for the class to get out for the day.

Kevin slowly packed up his stuff and headed to Mr. Fagginstons desk with his head bowed. On the way someone caught him by the arm. He glared up at the offender, only to see it was his best friend Tommie.

"Woah, dude. If looks could kill, i think you would just have blown up the room."

Tommie was taller than average, with blond hair and a light brown eyes. He wasn't exactly fat, but he also wasn't the skinniest person in the room. Despite all this, and his position on the Football team, he was still Kevin's friend. They had known each other since preschool. Tommie was 'in' with basically all the groups. The jocks loved him cuz he's on the football team, and he's pretty smart, so he has a lot of regular friends too. All the girls loved him because he is 'sensitive', but this also means that nobody wants to hurt his feelings, including kevin, who knew how it could go wrong if he blew off his steam at Tommie.

Kevin sighed frowning slightly, looking down again "Yeah, sorry. Im just not looking forward to another 'session' with Mr. Fag."

"SHH! Not while he's so close!" Kevin whispered forcefully "He might hear you!"

"Tommie? Why are you still here? Shouldn't you be getting out to the bus circle?"

Tommie stiffened as Mr Fag walked up behind him. "Y-yes sir!" He stuttered while turning around, rushing out of the room.

Kevin frowned at his friends obvious fear of Mr Fag.

"Alright Kevin, I know your nit looking forward to this, so lets just get it over with. You are just not paying enough attention in class, and its showing in your grades. Now, i know you can do better. Your test scores in this area are out of the roof! So tell me; Why don't you do better in this class? Hell, I don't even care if you pay attention or not. Just get your homework done and turned in, maybe even do a little of the classwork. Thats all I'm asking."

Kevin looked up from his shoes for a second, only to see Mr Fagginston looking at him with genuine concern.

Great.

That just made him feel worse about what he was about to say. "Yeah, and you'll stop being a bitch to all us kids in your class. THATS gonna happen real soon."

Mr. Fagginston sighed. He was used to being treated this way by Kevin, didn't mind it even. Their battle of wits oftentimes was the highlight of is day. But acting this way when he wasn't joking was getting annoying.

"Really now, Kev, you need to start doing better if you want to get into a good collage and get a good job. All you are doing for yourself now is letting your grades slip. This will ruin your life in the future. Now being a freshman, you have time to redeem yourself. If you-"

"I don't care!" Kevin snapped storming past his teacher and to the door. Just before he made it out though, he turned back to his social studies teacher "And don't call me 'Kev'." He whipped around and rushed down the hallway, his hand grabbing the strap of his backpack so tightly that he could feel his nails piercing the skin of his palm.

Mr Fagginston sighed and walked calmly back to his desk, sat down, and laid his head on his arms. After a moment, he sat up and picked up the phone, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He dialed a few numbers, then put the phone to his ear to listen. It rang... Then, "Ah, Mrs. Sampson! Yes, how are you doing? Good! Now, I was calling about your son..."

"That dick-shitting Roadkill-eating, damned, son-of-a-slut" Kevin muttered as he burst out of the schools double doors. He more-or-less stomped down the sidewalk on the way to the bus circle, his head down, kicking a rock, and muttering under his breath. As he fumed, he accidentally brushed past a burly Junior, who was walking to a car packed full of his friends. Being the next-to-top dog (almost a senior), there was no way that the junior was going to let that go. He whipped around and yelled "Hey, prick! You better be more careful nex time, ya hear?"

Kevin looked over his shoulder with an annoyed expression "Fuck off, shit head."

The Juniors eyes were almost popping out of their sockets.

He finally strangled out a sensible phrase, saying "Why you little mutha fucka [unintelligible] kick you so hard in your manjina that-" One of his friends, taking pity on the Freshi, decided to move it along by honking the horn.

The Junior calmed down enough to speak properly, and glared at Kevin, saying "Next time Shit-bag." and turned to get into the car.

The whole front courtyard was silent except for the growling of car and bus engines and the hissing of the wind through the trees, but Kevin was oblivious. He turned to go to his bus, looking up just in time to see it leaving the bus circle.

"DAMMIT" He yelled, kicking a large stone at the school building, narrowly missing someones head.  
>He stalked down the front walk of the school, a dark cloud seeming to hang over him. Even the stalker he had had since sixth grade was afraid to follow him.<p>

[Kevin's Point of View (POV)]

Today was just not my day. First I got in trouble in class for not caring to learn crap i already knew, and then my fag teacher had to go and act all nice about it. Then i freaking bump into some freak who decides to call me names, but two can play at that game, which caused me to miss my damn bus.  
>I am NOT in a good mood!<p>

I walked down the street, passing a lot of people giving me funny looks. My town doesn't exactly have the 'clean slate' when it comes to crime, so younger people walking home was not exactly common. I didn't really care though, in fact i welcomed it. I was so pissed off that if someone tried to jump me, I probably could have killed them by cursing at them.

Walking isn't exactly hard either, so it gave me time to think. For me, thats not much of a good thing when i'm in this state,cuz all i can think about is how much i want to kill something or hurt someone. Don't get me wrong, I'm not normally like this. I only really ever get mad in Superbad occasions, so me being super-mad like this was like Superman being hurt by a bullet. It never happens. I walked for around half an hour, and was thinking of ways I could get back at Mr Fag the whole way.

I knew meeting my mom would only make my mood worse at the moment, so instead of going directly to my apartment, I went to the abandoned construction site for some kind of Greeny lookout tower thing in the middle of the park. At first I was pissed when they started building, because that was the only place I could go to chill, but then when they gave up due to the economy going bad, I saw an opportunity.

You see, I am a man of many talents, my mom forced me to swim in the city YMCA when i was young, but now Im on a team and am in it for the fitness and physical challenge. Naturally, as a good swimmer, Im stronger than I look. The only thing is that I look OK-Strong.

My real passion, though, is climbing. Ever since I was little, i had been climbing. When I was younger, like, 4 to 5 years old, my parents would to call me Houdini because I would just disappear, and they would find me on the second floor of an undeveloped house with no steps. How i ever got up there, Im not sure, but I am beast at climbing. I can climb trees in no time flat, and I can climb some buildings, like unfinished ones, in only slightly longer time.

Anyways, I walked through the park, slowly feeling better. Peace and quiet have always helped with any anger I have, but Nature is always best for me. I would always go for a walk in the park as compared to sitting in the house doing absolute shit all day. As I neared the framework that had been set down for the building, I grabbed some things the workers had been using to construct the building.

A climbed to the top floor of the building that had been put up. I screwed around with the pieces of metal and wood that I had picked up, feeling much better than I had coming into the Park. It was getting dark out, but I didn't want to go to my apartment just yet, so i lay on my back and stared up at the stars. I named a couple of constellations, and found Mars, but other than that I just hung out and stargazed.

I was thinking about my mom. Ever since my dad died, she hadn't been the same. I mean, of course, who is, Right? But still. She seemed more withdrawn, and didn't seem to want to do much else that work, eat, tell me to do my homework, and go to bed.

When she isn't yelling at me for something of course.

I was lost deep in thought, staring, when I saw a light flash through the sky.

'Oh look a meteorite.' I thought lazily, smiling as i listed the properties of a meteor in my head.  
>Then my smile stiffened as I realized that this meteorite wasn't just flashing through the sky, but was getting closer, and was headed right for me.<p>

_**Haha! Hows THAT for a cliffhanger? Will i kill my original character and Move on to using someone more interesting, or will i have him be the bad guy? Maybe that Smartass Dickhead of a Junior would make a good main character if i tweak him just a bit. Or give him a sap story to explain meanness.**_

_**I wont ask for ideas yet, cuz i haven't finished with my original idea for the story, but if you could tell me how Im doing, (good, OK, Bad, Sucked so bad that your eyeballs were bleeding) it would be well appreciated. Also, any ideas for improving my style or you don't like a way I wrote something, tell me**_.


	2. Almost a Big Freaking Daimond

I wont ask for ideas yet, cuz i haven't finished with my original idea for the story, but if you could tell me how Im doing, (good, OK,Nn Bad, Sucked so bad that your eyeballs were bleeding) it would be well appreciated. Also, any ideas for improving my style or you don't like a way I wrote something, tell me.

[Anonymous POV]

Oh shit, Im going down! Im not going to survive this! OH SSSHHHHIIIIII-

Wait! Wats that?

Maybe... Nah...

...Hell... Its worth a shot...

[Kevin's POV]

"Oh shit, oh shit, ohshit, ohshit, ohshitohshitohshit,OHSITOHSITOHSHIT!"

I scrambled down the side of the building like my life depended on it, and,well... It did.

I am sweating like a black man from Alaska coming to California for the first time. Which is to say, I AM SOAKED.

[Authors Note (AN): No, Im not racist. Its just that black absorbs heat. Some of my best friends are 'black']

As soon as I felt my feet hit the ground, I started running.

I could hear it right behind me, I felt its searing heat, and with a light so blinding, I heard a resounding beat.

It had been skipping off the park's Central lake, only a few hundred meters behind me.  
>I slowed to a stop, and leaned onto a tree beside me, my breath hitching in my chest, The adrenaline I had been running off of a moment ago going sour.<p>

I was nearly recovered when I almost stopped breathing. The meteor had been headed strait for the tower, if not over it. So why did it hit a few hundred meters short of its destination?

I hoped I had just made a simple mistake. Maybe I had taken off in the wrong direction when I got to the ground, or had panicked when I thought I was about to die. I replayed the scene in my head over again, dread slowly settling in my stomach as I realized neither of these scenarios were true.  
>I knew that going back was an Idiotic idea, but I was drawn in by my own curiosity. I reluctantly turned to go find my space rock.<p>

A few dozen meters away from the lake, I slowed down to a walk. If my theory was correct, no matter how stupid it sounded, I would need to be able to run as fast as i could if i was to make it out alive. If my theory was wrong, then who cared. At least I was better rested.

As i neared the ridge just in front of the Lake, I dropped to my stomach and Army crawled closer. A was soon at the top, and finally worked up enough courage to pop my head over the ridge to see...  
>Nothing.<p>

All the water was gone from the lake, which explained my wet front, and there was a single, solitary, scrape in the dirt leading to a big black rock, pitted by its burning trip through the atmosphere.  
>I stood up, disgusted with myself. Of course there were no such things as aliens! What crazy freak-notion gave you that idea?<p>

I surveyed the damage to the front of my clothes. I groaned.

"Mom is SO going to kill me for this." I said to nobody in particular.

I sighed and made my way to the space rock. Maybe there was some interesting metal or diamond or something inside of it, just waiting to be found. That would solve my family's financial problems, at least.

I was just close enough to touch it, so, being Fearless Leader (or Dumbass Freshman), I did.  
>It was warm. Hot even. And smooth. Except for the little pits dotting all along the surface. I looked at it for a few minutes, just feeling the smoothness of it and admiring the perfect pits it had. Then I set to work, trying to find some kind of Crystal or space mineral in it. I reached to the top, and stuck my finger in one of the pits of the Meteorite, and pulled it away. Ti came off easier than I expected it would, though after a thousand degree descent, I don't think any substance would be too firm. I looked down at where my finger had pulled away in surprise, then smiled. There was a clear crystalline under the black shell. Maybe it was a good idea to come back...<p>

[Anonymous POV]

Damn...

I've been saying that a lot lately haven't I?

Well, anyway, I finally got the strength to shift after my crash. I felt like I had just been strapped to a rock and dropped into an ocean. Every muscle and bone in my body was sore.

At least I knew I was still alive. Pain meant chemical reactions occurring in my brain, and chemical reactions meant a functioning body, and functioning body means alive.

I sat up from my padded seat, every bone in my back popping and groaning from the motion. I grimaced from the pain.

I did a few stretches, trying to get my body to stop shaking and stop hurting, if possible. Every time I moved a loud snapping could be heard. Soon enough I had my body back under my control, and noticed it was pitch black in the cabin of my ship. That was new.

I looked at where my control panel should be. No lights. That means no power.

Shit.

I grabbed the buckle of my seat and unlatched myself. Then I grabbed the re-breather from my pocket. Im glad I brought it. Who knew if the world I was in had breathable air or not?

I quickly put my RB on and reached for the latch that released the door. I pulled, but nothing happened. I sighed heavily. Alright, lets do this the hard way.

I grabbed the handles on the roof of the pod, and brought my feet up to kick...

[Kevin's POV]

I smiled as I heard the radio announcer in my head, "14 year old Kevin Sampson finds worlds largest and heaviest diamond, worth an astonishing amount of 20 trillion dollars." He wondered how his mom should react to that news. She certainly wouldn't be angry for his shirt anymore.

I felt giddy as he pulled off some more meteor, the charred matter staining my hands black. After a few minutes of searching, I got angry. I couldn't find any more diamond. I came to a split second anger decision and grabbed the piece I had already soon as I touched the smooth rock, though, I felt like I had just been shocked by a mini tesla coil. I grinned with this newfound energy and pulled.

The crystalline mineral came off easily via my strong pull. I was dissapointed though. Don't get me wrong, It wasn't that I couldn't find any more, it was that the one I had gotten all excited about was small, round and had a hole through the middle, like a fruit loop.

I sulked at the fact, but pocketed that one crystal with glee.

I froze when he heard a loud thump, coming from the empty crater that used to be a lake.

I was even more surprised when I realized I wasn't scared, or even alarmed by the sound. Only mildly curious as to what was making it. I hurried over to the edge of the lake crater. It was deep and muddy, and had no water in it. All there was was some smoking sharpish looking black rock thing in the center of the lake.

'Maybe its another meteorite, or split off the original.' I thought, trying to make sense of it. Not only did a meteorite crash to earth and NOT wipe out any life, except for maybe a few fish and possibly a squirrel I saw that was flattened, but it looked like TWO meteorites had hit, with very few causalities!  
>"Man how the news guys would freak for this" I muttered to myself as I jumped into the lake crater, sliding down the steep bank of mud. I quickly made my way, shlurping my way to the middle. More thuds were audible from the rock, and I was starting to be frightened, but only a little bit.<p>

Then suddenly,

BANG

A voice called put from the thing, sounding only slightly older than me, but muffled somewhat. The voice said "Shistaghulairan Des Moin estyr syrystroom?" Well, thats what it sounded like anyways.  
>Then de called out "You speak Cornerian then?" My head shot up in recognition, my hair, previously plastered to my forehead, but now dry, getting in my eyes. I reached down to brush my hair out of my eyes when another discharged shot vaporized a bit more mud, close enough to my feet that I could feel the heat. "Don't try anything funny, now, or i'll shoot. Good. Now slowly put your hands on your head, and turn around."<p>

I did as the voice so calmly asked.

Now I had a good look at his face. Obviously it was a He, from the body posture, form, and its general resemblance to a humanoid figure. He was slightly shorter than me, and his hands seemed to have some kind of gloves on. The mysterious figure was also wearing some kind of mask, with reflective goggle lenses, and a small contraption sticking out of the mouth.

All in all, it cut a fairly normal impression. Except for the deadly ray gun and the mask.

I realized the figure had started speaking again.

"Alright, now tell me, does your race know what type of chemicals make up your atmosphere? And don't try anything funny. I have a charged Laser Gun and Im not afraid to use it."

"Yeah, I realized," I muttered, glancing at the smoldering pits in the mud.

"Haha! So you do speak Cornerian, and you do have a sense of humor! Now, answer my question."

"All right, all right! Jeez! The atmosphere is made up of Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, and some other minor gasses, the closest third being Nitrogen. Now, will you please point that gun somewhere else, its scaring me!"

The figure on the rock tilted his head quizzically, then slowly lowered his gun. A stiff buzzing that I hadn't noticed before suddenly stopped when he turned his gun off.

The masked figure got off the ship and walked towards me. Funny. I don't feel afraid anymore.

I let my hands drop, and felt the tension in the air grow as the figure in the mask tensed up.

As soon as he realized I wasn't going for a weapon, though, he relaxed slightly and led my up up put of the lake pit.

I was trailing behind him, and quickly realized he was headed to town.

"Wait!" I yelled, grabbing his arm.

The mysterious figure grabbed my hand, reached back, and with an enormous strength, flipped me onto the ground in front of him.

When he realized I wasn't trying to hurt him, he let my go.

"Wait why?" he asked seriously.

I sputtered, trying to catch my breath. Then answered, "The people in the town have never seen an alien before... Hell, I've never seen an alien before. They might try to kill you!"

The guy above me chuckled darkly at that. "Id like to see them try."

I scrambled to my feet and stood in front of him. "I wouldn't. I don't want you getting hurt, and more importantly, I don't want you hurting anybody."

The masked figure looked at me for a moment, then laughed a genuine laugh of amusement at my serious face.

"Haha! Well, you're a good person and its a pleasure to meet you, whats your name?" he said, reaching a gloved hand out to me.

"Kevin. Kevin Sampson." I said, taking his hand and shaking it.

The guy took off his mask, revealing a red-furred face, with a white stripe down his forehead, and emerald green eyes. "My name is Fox. Fox McCloud." he replied

_**Yay! Done with the second Chapter! Apparently, you cant post from an iPad! So I had one heck of a time trying to get this story transferred! Please rate, or review, or read, or like, or whatever you want to do now. Im not asking for suggestions yet, but tell me how you like my style, or if you don't like it. Any suggestions on how to write stuff more to the readers satisfaction is helpful. Thanks, hope you read more soon, and bye!**_


	3. Sugar Rush

I looked at the strange creature across from me. He didn't seem to have any sense of self preservation as he stared at me in astonishment, his mouth 'catchin' flies' as Falco would have put it.

After a few more moments his examination got uncomfortable.

"Well, I had better be going then" I said politely, not wanting to offend him any more than I had by pointing my blaster at him.

This creature, Kevin, I think he said, quickly snapped out of his daze, and quickly grabbed my arm. Again, I was startled at how strong this creature was. He moved quicker than it looked like he could too.

I had to stop myself from putting him into a hold, since I was still on high alert from my crash onto this planet, which I still didn't know the name of.

I frowned slightly as I realized the creature across from me was talking again.

"...really can, you see? They would kill you with many more guns than you could take out."

This last part caught my attention. "And how many of these guns do you suppose they have on call for the assassination of an interstellarly well known bounty hunter?"

I said that last bit a little smugly, but hey, this thing was starting to annoy me with the talk of that I cant take down his planets common soldiers.

"On call at any moment, or all the forces? Cuz just on call in the city alone, we have, like, what? A couple hundred?"

I felt myself pale slightly at the thought of having to fight more than a few dozen soldiers at once.

I asked the thing across from me, "So what would you prepose I do then? Sit here and wait for someone to come?" Crap. My voice shook more than I would have liked.

The thing looked at me with a thoughtful expression.

After a few minutes, he finally answered, "Well I guess I could let you stay at my place until you could find a way to get off Earth..."

"So this planets name is Earth?"

"Yup. Let me be the first to welcome the first interstellar traveler to our planet."

I grinned slightly at his brash confidence and obvious disinterest in me being Fox McCloud. Ever since the Lylatt War, people had been tripping up all over the place to meet him. This creature not being interested brought back some of the Old Fox. The one before all the damned fans and paparazzi.

Fox grinned at Kevin warmly and said "Thanks! I really-" and then I realized something, "Wait. The FIRST one? So you mean to say Im the first off-worlder to EVER come to this planet?"

"Ahh... Yup, thats about it."

So thats why I'd never heard of this furless creature.

"Well, in that case, I wont feel stupid asking, What species are you? I didn't think I recognized your species, but I didn't want to ask."

"Ah, Im human, and you, are some kind of fox, but my *ahem* 'species' hasn't seen a fox anything like you... Ever. Some people may take you as some kind of mutant freak and stick you somewhere to study you. Thats why Im trying to keep you from the city."

I felt my ears flick back in embarrassment for not listening to this human earlier. I was on an uncharted planet and had just about brushed off the advice of a native. That would have been stupid.

I sighed heavily.

"All right. But you'll go to your apartment, and I'll try to rebuild my ship."

"Oh. That's a ship down there? I thought it was some kind of rock."

Damn. Thats right. Its a piece of space-junk now.

"Dammit" I said, realizing something important.

"What?" Kevin asked, worried.

"All my power is gone! I cant sent a distress signal for the rest of Star Fox to pick up... Hell, for ANYONE to pick up.

We both sighed heavily.

After a while, Kevin finally spoke up, motioning somewhere to his right "Um... We could try to carry your ship to the building over there"

I shrugged, knowing there was nothing else we could do.

[Kevin's POV]

Fox had told me to grab a socket wrench, a few different sockets (god willing that both our species made our bolts and other things the same) a screw driver, a metal file, a welder, a hammer, and some wires.

I was not happy. I only had screw drivers, a hammer, socket wrenches and some wires at my apartment. The only problem was that I would need to buy the welder and the metal file.

I walked past the workshop store on my way home, finding a had a bit of time to look around and find how much a welder and file cost. I walked in, heading down the isles, browsing for the things I needed, muttering about coming back.. There was someone standing behind the cash register, but I didn't pay him any mind. I quickly found what I needed and left the store.

[The next morning]

I woke up, and began my normal weekend routine; eat, shower, change, pack up, and get out the door.

I hopped on the city bus and sat down, my mom hadn't been at home when I went to bed, and was never up when I woke up, so I didn't have to deal with her about class yesterday, because I was sure Mr Fag had called her.

I got to the store feeling shittier than usual, and I had no idea why, because I had gotten to sleep earlier than I normally would have yesterday after all the excitement.

I walked in and froze. Bitch Ass Junior was just inside, smirking at me.

"Ah, The Bitch Came Back." He said, also referring to the song he was playing on his phone.

"Um... Yeah... I was just... Um..." I was at a loss of words. I hadn't expected to see him here, or at all. At least, not till monday.

He walked up to me and grabbed my arm, leading me outside.

"Im just happy you didn't notice me last night, because if you had we wouldnt have this WONDERFUL moment to ourselves!" he said with a mocking tone.

He led me into the ally beside the store, where he dropped me, stepping back and cracking his knuckles.

"Alright Smartass, come at me."

"What?" I asked startled.

"You heard me." He growled evilly.

'Alright' I thought smugly. Junior was standing loosely, in a threatening stance.

I rushed at him, swinging with my right, but quickly throwing a real punch with my left.

Junior easily dodged the first punch, and caught my hand with the second, twisting my arm into a painful position that forced my head to the ground. His elbow was on mine, pushing me down further.

"Ha! And here I was thinking you might have been a fighter!"

There was an explosion of pain in my face as I felt my nose break, blood spattering the pavement.

I growled anomalistically and jerked free of the junior. I jumped back before he could do anything to my, and surveyed him with wild eyes, my nose crooked.

The tense silence continued between us for a time. I finally snapped.

I charged at him with a roar, swinging my fists like a madman, hatred burning in my eyes.

The junior looked scared, backing away. I smirked, despite the pain it caused my pouring nose. I finally got close enough to hit him and, to my surprise, he sidestepped, grabbed one of my arms and the back of my hair, and threw me headfirst into the wall.

My head connected with a loud CRACK, and i slumped to the ground, my limbs no longer under my control.

"Next time be more careful about who you make enemies with kid, cuz I'm just join' easy on you.

He walked out of the ally calmly as if nothing happened. I, on the other hand, was slumped against the wall, my crooked nose streaming and my eye puffing up.

A few minutes later, i regained control of my body, and pushed myself up, standing up shakily. I felt my face.

Yup. My eye was swelling, no doubt green by now, and my nose was squished against my face. At least my nose had stopped flowing with blood.

I stumbled out past the corner, wiping my upper lip, my sleeve quickly becoming sticky with blood.

I walked back into the store, trying to act normal, although its hard when you can barely see out of one eye, and you can see most of your nose with the other.

I got a few looks, but like i said, my town isn't exactly the most peachy place, so this was fairly common. I bought the welder and the file and quickly rushed back to the park.

I walked to the lookout tower frame and went inside. Fox and I had dragged his ship in here the other night, and fox had started working on it. It was surprisingly light. He had already knocked off a lot of the burnt material from the outside, and it was looking more and more like a ship.

As soon as I got in, he looked up and said "Well, you look like hell. What happened?"

So I told him about BitchAss.

When I finished, he looked at me with pity. "Well that sucks. Do you want me to go out and get him for you?"

"NO" I shouted. "If you go somewhere you'll be shot by somebody."

Fox sighed.

"Well at least let me fix that for you." he said, pointing at my nose.

"Oh, ok."

I knew it was going to hurt, but when Fox twisted the bridge of my nose back into place, I jerked away, whimpering from the pain.

With my nose bleeding again, I couldn't do much to help Fox with his ship until it stopped.

I sat back and watched Fox tapping off the black stuff with the hammer before filing the rest of it off. It looked pretty hard, but Fox didn't even seem to be tired. I quickly realized he was much stronger than his body hinted.

As soon as my nose was done bleeding, I grabbed the hammer and started tapping off pieces of burnt space-rock. With the two of us working, it took a hell of a lot less time than I thought it would. When we had finished, I asked fox if he wanted to go back to my place for some lunch. Most everybody was at work (Including my mom), and the ones who weren't were sleeping or inside playing video games.

[Fox's POV]

We got to Kevin's apartment fairly quickly. Nobody spotted us. When we got inside, Kevin let out a sigh of relief, and walked to a white cabinet with two levels. He opened one of them and brought out a bottle of some kind.

"Do you want something to drink? We have water, Kool-aid, soda, stuff like that."

I looked at him funny.

"Whats Kool-aid?"

"Here try some." He said while reaching into the cabinet, bringing out a large pitcher of red liquid.

He took the pitcher and put it on the table. He pulled some cups out of a cabinet above a sink, and poured the Kool-aid into one. He handed the cup to me, and I took a sip.

My eyes must have been as big as plates. It was very sweet and tasted faintly like an exotic fruit.

"Wow! It's so sweet!"

Kevin laughed at this. "You haven't even had soda yet!"

I was exited to get some soda.

"Oh! Please get me one!" I said excitedly, a faint buzzing developed in the back of my head as I finished off my Kool-aid.

Kevin laughed at me, pulling out another bottle from the cabinet box. "Here, this'll have you bouncing off the walls."

I eagerly grabbed the bottle, popped it open, and took a big gulp from it.

My eyes watered as the liquid burned its way down my throat. I coughed for a while, then looked up at Kevin, who was looking at me, smiling.

"You humans LIKE this torture?" I spat at him.

Kevin laughed. "Its not torture! You just drank it too fast. Take a sip."

I did as Kevin suggested warily. I was not eager to burn myself again.

My eyes snapped open as I swallowed.

It was delicious!

I put the bottle to my muzzle and took another swig.

[Kevin's POV]

We went back to the ship, throwing ourself into our work with passion. The seven or eight sodas each didn't help.

By the end of the next few hours, Fox was asleep.

I grunted when I looked at him, sitting in the small cabin of his ship, his head hanging back and mouth open.

"Cant hold his Caffeine" I mumbled to myself, tierdly.

My eye was throbbing again. The swelling had gone down, but being tired made it hurt.

I made one more round of the ship, looking for any more black matter left on the outside that I could scrape away. When I didnt find any, I grabbed the vulpine from his seat and dragged him out.

He jerked into wakefulness when his feet banged against the floor.

He jumped out of my hands and pulled out his gun with a lazer-charging-to-be-fired sound. He glanced around wildly, saying "Wha... Where are they!"

He quickly realized what had happened, and put his gun away.

"Dude, you really need to CALM IT DOWN. I would have yelled if someone was here." i said.

"Yeah.. Sorry."

We made our way back to my apartment. It was harder now that people were home, but not by much.

As soon as we got inside, I shoved fox into the bathroom, and told him he wasn't allowed to come out until he took a shower, cuz DAYUM! He reeked!

I can't say much though, I probably smell the same.

When Fox finished, I showed him to my room, and left to go take a shower.

I'll spare you the bathroom experience, so; When I got back to my room, I found Fox out cold on my bed. I smirked at how vulnerable he looked without his jumpiness and acting all badass with his gun.

My face split into a large yawn. Damn. We worked our butts off and I was exhausted. It probably didnt help tha it was going to take a lot of rest to recover from the beating I took today. I grabbed a blanket from the closet, and hopped onto the couch behind my drum set.

I was asleep before my head even hit the padded armrest.

**Done. Review please. I want to know if anybody has read this yet.**


	4. Radio and boring music

**I'm sorry if fox is out of character, but Ive never played the games, so I just have to guess off what Ive read and what it seems like he would be like. Also, kinda boring in start. Should start getting much better after this chapter. I'll definitely put in some fight scenes.**

I woke up that morning still exhausted. I guess hours of hard work will do that to you, huh?

I rolled off my couch, landing on the double pedal of my drum set.

"Ow! Friggin damned crap of a shitting pot headed bitch assed fucking [keeps going for a while]"

Yeah. Im not much of a morning person, and its only worse when I'm sore. I struggled to get up, knocking over one of my cymbals onto the edge of my dresser, making Fox jump straight up into the air.

He landed back on my bed looking at me with wide eyes. He was awake now. Good.

I picked my cymbal up and put it back in place, then stumbled into the bathroom across the hall, yawning.

I turned on the cold water in my sink, and splashed my face, trying to wake myself up. It worked, but only a little. When I got back to my room, I found Fox messing with my guitar, which I normally had on a stand in the corner. He strummed once, unaware I was there, and smiled. He messed with the strings and found how it worked, then strummed out a few different chords making a tune. He was pretty good.

I moved past the doorframe, making Fox scramble to put everything back. He turned and looked at me guiltily.

"Sorry about that. It just looked cool."

"Nah. Its fine. I really don't play guitar anyways. Bet you're pretty good, though."

Fox grinned at what I said, his ears perking up slightly.

"Thanks!"

I grinned back at him.

"Alright, let's see how well you can do this. Here." I grabbed my MP3 player from my dresser and hooked it up to the speaker on my floor, "Listen and see if you can play."

I put one of the most simple songs I had on it. Hard to Handle, by The Black Crowes. I had it on there to learn how to play drums, along with Me and My Gang.

Its pretty simple when its broken down, other than the solos, so I figured that it's the perfect beginners song. Fox listened to the music intently, his head bobbing slightly to the beat.

"What is this music?" he asked when the song was over.

"It's rock, but that's not even the good stuff, this is to see if you can get the hang of it." I replied.

"Hmm." he said, not really interested in me, more on the guitar.

He picked it up and strummed a chord, then a few notes.

"Ok," he said flashing me a smile.

I played the song again. He played it pretty good, only struggling with the solo.

"Damn! You're freaking beast at this!" I hollered over the loud music, "It took me a week just to be able to change notes fast enough, and here you come owning it your first freaking time!"

I was in awe.

"Hey... Try this one. It'll be kinda stupid at first, just fast strumming, but it'll be cool if we play it together."

I scrolled through my playlist and picked out my song. Track 4 of The Black Parade. Also known as The Sharpest Lives.

I let Fox listen to the song, then he quickly played it. This song, apparently, was even easier. He played it nearly perfectly.

We went through songs, and after a while, I joined him. He would play the guitar part, me playing the drums. He became particularly attached to one song, but after we played It through a third time, he decided we needed to get back to fixing his ship.

I told him to go to the kitchen and grab something for us to eat while I changed.

Crap.

I just realized I've got no clean pants left. Oh well.

I grabbed the pair from Friday off the floor. I put them on, and grinned. I felt GOOD. I don't even know why, cuz this morning I felt like crap.

[Fox's POV]

We arrived at the half-building where my ship was being kept sometime after midday.

Kevin seemed even more energetic than he did when we found out I could play the guitar. He had bought some 'buffer' as he called it on the way. He said it would keep my ship from rusting. That would be useful.

He showed me how to use it, and we quickly got to work. He was buffing the ship while I was trying to fix the wiring on the inside to get my radio to work.

I'm no expert when it comes to repairs, cuz that's Slippy's job, but I know my wirings, and soon enough I had my ships radio up and running.

The ship itself was too beat up to get flying again (with me fixing it anyways) so Kevin and I quickly gave up on that idea.

Now was the moment of truth. I was going to send a radio signal back out into the galaxy, hoping the expansions and contractions of space time didn't destroy my message. I was calling to anybody. I wanted to get back to the Great Fox.

"Attention. Urgent rescue request code 1186370A. Request by Fox McCloud. Star date 9540, space day 678. Planet, Unknown. Quadrant, unknown. Galaxy, unknown. Send immediate help or rescue team. End message."

I switched off the sender node of the radio.

"Now all we can do is wait" I said.

Kevin looked at me funny.

"So your space-time-continuum technology space-time jumping crap can't even send a message through space sometimes? And what was with all the 'Unknown' crap?"

"Space stretches and bends as it grows and shifts, so a simple wavelength gets bent and warped to the point of no recognition through space at the wrong times. The 'unknown' was because this is an unexplored region in space to where I come from, so theres no names to these places. Does that answer you?"

Kevin pursed his lips, processing what I just said.

"So... It might take, like, a week for anyone to get that 'Urgent Message'?

I thought for a second.

"Well... That depends on how far they are, but yeah. It could."

"So I'm stuck hiding you for a week. Great. Perfect. Just freaking peachy."

"What's 'peachy' mean?" I asked slightly confused.

"Oh... I guess it's cuz a peach is sweet, and the sarcasm... Never mind." Kevin sighed and started walking away.

I followed him in silence. I knew he didn't want to talk to me. We got to his apartment and pulled his keys out of his pocket. He unlocked the door and let me in.

As soon as I let fox walk past me, I turned and grabbed the thing that dropped out of my pocket. It was that diamond-rock-thing. Although, knowing my life, it probably isn't a diamond.

I picked it up anyway, and bounced it on my palm as I walked into my room. I snapped a leather rope off the necklace that I was going to give to my girlfriend before she dumped me, and looped it through the rock, slipping it around my neck and into my shirt.

Fox was in my room, playing my guitar again. That made me smile.

"Alright, time to go to bed. I got school tomorrow, and there ain't nuthin I can do bout it, so you need to quiet down."

Fox looked up, questioningly, "You still go to school?"

"Uh, duh. Why? Don't you?"

"Nah, I never went to school. There was never anything there I needed to know."

"Ha. Fuckin lucky." I grumbled.

I walked to the bathroom and got ready for bed.

The next day I groaned as I sat up, the blood rushing out of my head. I started trying to make my way to the kitchen, and slammed right into the door frame.

"Ow..." I stumbled into the kitchen, my baggy pajama pants tripping me, and the cold air on my bare chest giving me goose bumps.

I got my cereal into the bowl somehow, but missed my bowl when pouring the milk.

"Dmit" I tried to curse but it didn't work.

I slurped up my cereal and moved back to my room to get ready for school. Fox was going through some kind of yoga thing in my room.

"wutrya doing" I slurred at him, swaying sleepily on my feet.

"Im stretching for incase I get picked up today," he said, perfectly alert.

"Mmkay," I replied.

I took off my pajama bottoms and put some clean jeans on. I grabbed a shirt out of my drawer and pulled on my jacket.

I looked at fox, standing in plain view of anyone who happened to walk in.

"You should probly make sure you're not seen," I said to him, a little more awake.

"Ok, no problem,"

I walked out and went to my bus stop.

Have you ever had a zit or something on your face, and you feel like you kind of need to hide your face so nobody can see it? How about a black eye?

Although it was fading some, I still didn't like the way people looked at me.

I got out of my Third Block class, on my way to lunch, only to bump into the Junior I had pissed off Friday. Literally. I ran into him while turning a corner.

"Weeellllll! Looky who we have here! A stray Freshy, just on his way to lunch!" He said in a mockingly kind tone, "Let's just teach him to be on time more often, then, shall we?"

His hand connected with my face so fast I didn't even flinch when it hit.

My face was blank. My mind was blank. My nose was streaming blood onto the floor, staining it. I felt a fire inside my chest, I felt angry and calm at the same time. It was frightening at how dangerous I felt.

I almost tried to deck him again, but I remembered what had happened in the alley, so I faked turned away, and flicked a foot behind me to try to kick him. All I remember after that was getting up off the floor, being helped by Tommie, and being taken to the principals office. Apparently they deemed that I had lost a lot of blood and needed to go home to recover.

I got picked up by my mom, who was pissed that I was fighting in school, but worried about me at the same time. I slept through everything she asked me.

I went to my room and promptly fell asleep. I remember waking up periodically with my mom, then going back to sleep.

The next morning I woke up with a slight headache, but no tiredness at all. I started getting out of bed, but my mom walked in and stopped me. She sat on the edge if my bed and said "Kev, we need to talk."

Oh shit. My mom was in my room. Where is Fox?

I broke out in a cold sweat. I was trying to think up some reason for hiding an alien life form from the world. Maybe they'll believe that I was brainwashed? My mom continued.

"You were in bad condition yesterday when they brought you home. What happened?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. Fox wasn't found.

"I don't know," I lied, frowning at the weakness of my voice.

I tried to clear my throat. "I just remember turning around and hitting the floor."

My mom looked at me skeptically for a while then accepted it. If I didn't want the kid who did it to get in trouble, there was probably a reason.

"Alright. Well, I've got to go to work. I picked your homework for today and yesterday up. Make sure you do it, eat plenty, and don't leave the house."

"Alright mom. Love you!"

"Love you too, honey!"

As soon as the door clicked closed, I hopped out of bed, calling for fox. He wouldn't have left, could he?

I heard a shuffling from the bathroom.

I walked over and watched Fox struggling to get out of the cabinet under the sink. He finally popped out, straightening quickly.

"Wow. You look like you've been to a war on Venom and back," he said, examining my face.

I looked over in the mirror and did a double take. I was pale as a ghost, and my nose was cut on the bridge. My left eye was blue and green, and there were scrapes all along the side of my face. I did look like a war survivor.

My face sagged.

"Hey" Fox said, noticing my sadness, "What's up?"

"Stupid Junior beats me up every friggin day since Friday- three days ago... wait, three of four? Oh well. Ever since three or four days ago. I can't even get a friggin punch in."

Fox looked at me sympathetically.

"I could try and teach you some fighting techniques if you want"

He was just being kind, but for some reason, it got on my nerves.

"No! I don't want any damned Kung-Fu lessons! I just... I wanna... UGH!" I whipped around and stalked into my room. I grabbed my jacket, a knife, and my wallet. I stalked to the door and left. Leaving Fox wondering why I was so angry.

I walked o my favorite place in the city other than the park. Tommie's house.

I was always welcome there. His mom was nice, and his dad was always able to make a joke of something.

One time my mom kicked me out of the apartment because I had spilled some Pixy-Stick on the floor and she thought I was doing crack. I came over here and they let me stay for a few days. They didn't even ask why I had been kicked out.

I loved Tommie's parents almost as much as I loved my mom. Though I did wish my mom was as cool as them sometimes.

I was playing Black Ops with Tommie in his living-room. We were yelling into our headsets from the couch, as usual.

He was kicking everyones asses with his supa-skillz at video games, while I was trying to keep myself hidden and not get killed.

My parents had never really let me have very many video games, so the ones I played, I was either super good at naturally, or I sucked.

Soon enough, it started getting dark. I needed to get home. I thanked Tommie's parents for having me over and walked home. It was drizzling when I got back to my apartment.

I was feeling pretty good when I got back. I needed to apologize to Fox for being so angry when I left.

A long story short, he was gone.

**I didn't really feel much like writing recently, but I want to send a shout out to Species Unknown to say thanks for being the first reviewer of my first story.**


	5. Where it starts getting good

I searched everywhere for him, I even looked under my bed.

I was starting to get nervous. What if somebody caught him and took him to the government or a zoo or something?

I admit, I almost cried.

He was one of my only true friends, and now he was gone.

'No! Snap out of it Kevin! You will find him. Maybe he just went for a stroll or something... That's It! He went back to his ship!' My wobbly knees got slightly more sturdy.

I ran to my room to grab my big knife. I always kept it under my pillow in case of emergencies. I think being beaten and robbed in the middle of the night in the park for not having it counts.

I flung my pillow off my bed and grabbed my knife. I noticed the rock I had strung together on my bed. It must have fallen out of my pocket while I was sleeping. I grabbed it too.

I almost ran to the park through the flickering street lights like a mad man, but I restrained myself. Getting attention drawn to myself was the last thing I wanted in the middle of the night. There were all kinds of 'dangers', like robbers and highwaymen, who would beat you down and kill you for a dime.

I felt like the Energizer Bunny. I was so jumpy and seemed so staticy that I felt like if they hooked me up to some generator or something that I could power the block for a week.

I finally made it to the park, and as soon as I broke out of sight of the city, I broke into a dead sprint. I was so worried and nervous that I didn't even feel tired. In fact, before long, I realized I had sprinted the whole freaking half mile to the middle of the park and I wasn't even breathing that hard.

I reached the building in the middle of the park, guided by the light of the waxing moon. There was a flickering light inside, like a fire, but I knew Fox wouldn't have done that.

Somebody had found the ship.

I crept closer, proud at how silent I was as I creeped up. I peered into a window hole. I was just far enough away that the light didn't reach me. I was watching inside, and was filled with dread at what I saw.

Fox was lying on the floor, his eye swollen, and his muzzle dripping blood. His hands were bound behind his back. The gang that had captured him didn't look any better than he did, all beat up and battered. Fox must have given one helluva fight, but he was outnumbered by like, 20 to one, and they had all kinds of bats and ropes and chains and crap. It didn't help that his gun was in pieces on the ground either.

I realized I recognized the one who was interrogating Fox. He was the guy who had honked the horn back in the school parking lot to keep BitchAss off me. I felt a pit in my stomach, but not of fear. This was rage and hate.

"What are you and where did you come from. Answer me!" The-Guy-Who-Honked barked at Fox, kicking him viciously in the stomach. Fox coughed up another globule of blood.

"Tell us who has been helping you get around! We might not kill you then." The-Guy-Who-Honked said viciously, stepping on one of Fox's hands, cracking a bone.

Fox whimpered, but didn't answer.

"Alright then, well just learn how to work this ship without you. Somebody get me a bat. I wanna smash this buggers head right in" The-Guy-Who-Honked, who I'll now call BitchAssJr grinned evilly as one of his gang members pulled out a bat. He stood in front of Fox with a wide stance, and brought the bat up, all the way behind his head, his back facing me.

I snapped.

I was in the room before I even had time to think. I grabbed the thick part of the bat, holding it firmly. When BitchAssJr swung down, his hands slipped right off the end of the bat and, with no resistance, flew right down, smashing his own *ahem* baby-makers. He doubled over in pain.

The rest of the group was just processing I was there. I stepped in front of Fox. All my fear was gone. All my nervousness was gone. All my rage was gone.

I was a pool of calm. I had no fear. The only sound was BichAssJr on the floorwhimpering and cursing an octive higher than normal. I prepared myself.

The first of the gang broke out of their trance. He charged me blindly, his bat swinging at my head.

I'm not sure how I did any of what I was about to do. The bat was swinging to my head, but it seemed slow. Everything seemed sharper and more vibrant than before. I stepped forward, and caught the bat near the hand that was swinging it. I pulled it free as I elbowed the kid to the head.

My last coherent thought was not of anything very relevant. I was sad that most of these kids were close to my age, and I felt sad that they had to suffer like this.

The boy I elbowed in the face dropped like a rock, breaking the rest of the kids from their trance. They charged at me.

Elbow to face, duck and jump up with an uppercut.

Punch to face, bob left, trap the arm, break the elbow. Elbow to the face of the guy to my left.

Swinging club at my head, matrix duck, whip back with a hammer-fist to the head. Back fist and hook punch to the face of the guy coming up on my right.

Nobody escaped. Nobody died. Nobody got seriously hurt. Nobody spent much more than a few seconds in front of me.

I was in a damned Beast Mode.

I was breathing hard as the last of the kids came at me. This last one was cautious. He had a weighted chain in his hand, and was swinging it in small circles at his waist. I started at him, but he ducked it, retreating to a corner. I waited for him, and waited for it, and waited. He wasn't coming at me was he? I lunged at him again, but he was ready. He sidestepped and brought the end of the chain down on my back, me running head on into the wall.

I slumped to the ground, stunned. I got back up, and let out a growl as I turned...

WHAM! Someone had punched me right to the side of the face. I went down again, blood spattering the floor under me from my mouth.

Some of the kinds had gotten off the floor and were back, angrier than before. BitchAssJr was back and picked me up, holding me in the air by my throat. I panicked slightly when I couldn't breath, then I calmed down.

Nobody could beat me. Not if I didn't let them. I reached my left hand down and grabbed his ear, and slammed my fist into his face. Then again. And again.

The rest of the kids, who had been cheering for their leader, suddenly got quiet. BAJ dropped to his knees, blood spraying from his nose onto my jacket, but I kept punching. He fell to his back, but I kept punching him. I finally got up off him, and took my corner back. BAJ was out cold. He had a broken nose, his eye was swelling, he had bruises all over his face, and I'm sure a few teeth are at least loose.

The rest of the kids were scared. I could see it in their faces. They were all taller, buffer and more badass looking than me, but somehow I had beaten them all singlehandedly, and was barely hurt. Some of them grabbed BAJ, and dragged him away from me.

One of the less wounded ones picked him up and slung him over his shoulder. The gang backed out of the building, keeping a close eye on me, but I didn't care. I dropped to my knees by Fox. He was breathing, and his muzzle stopped bleeding.

He was OK.

The gang had taken off now, going back to whatever base they had. I suddenly felt exhausted. I dropped to my knees, then to my stomach.

I winced as I landed on something hard, right in the middle of my chest. I pulled out the necklace and stared, slack-jawed. It was was hot to the touch and was shining dully, but was dimming quickly. I watched the light fade. As soon as it was gone, I passed out.

Have you ever swam the 500 yard free, then had to get out and turn around and swim in two relays – the 100 and 400 a— just after each other? That's how I felt when I woke up that morning. It probably didn't help that I had been sleeping on concrete and was one of the most awkward sleeping positions I could possibly have twisted into.

I untwisted my arm from under my leg and tried to sit up, wincing as my muscles screamed bloody murder.

I turned my head as far as I could, which was pretty far considering I was stiffer than a board and had a crick in my neck, and looked at Fox. My motions had awakened him, and he was sitting up. He looked a lot better than he had the night before, but that's probably because you can't see bruises very well through fur. His muzzle was matted with dried blood, and there were a few cuts around in his shredded shirt.

"Ugh... Oh dear gods. What happened to you?" He asked, looking at how battered I looked, "I take back what I said before. NOW you look like you've been through a war on Venom."

"Ha. Yeah, yesterday was no freaking walk in the park was it?"

Fox's eyes widened "Oh Hell no! Dude, you fought better than Falco claims he can fight, and that's sayin' something!" Fox grinned painfully "And you said you can't fight. Yeah right"

The realization of what happened last night hit me like another fight. I just beat like 20 of the best fighters in the town singlehandedly. Without any training. What the Hell had happened?

Then I remembered the rock. I remembered how every time I was near it I felt energized. I remembered how everything seemed sharper when I had it.

I pulled my necklace out, and showed it to Fox.

"Do you know what this is?"

He took it in his hand and his eyes widened. He gasped loudly and look like he had been slapped across the face...

His face went blank "Nope. I've no Idea what it is. But you should have seen your face when I did that. Priceless" He was grinning maniacally and started to crack up.

I looked at him a moment, then joined him. We laughed like maniacs, half out of the actual hilarium* of the moment, and half of relief of not dying. We laughed till it hurt, which didn't take very long, considering it already felt like we had broken a couple ribs.

**[* Hilarium - n. The essence of hilariousness or the atmosphere of a good nature, also could be a place where they put retired comedians. A made up word by yours truly.]**

I wiped a tear of mirth/pain off the edge of my eye, "Yeah I guess I would have. Dude, we should probably get back to my apartment. It's pretty early in the morning, and I still need to go to school."

All anger on my part earlier was forgotten. I stuck my necklace back on and started leading the way back to my house.

Fox and I got back in my apartment and I took a cold, then hot shower. As I was brushing my teeth, I finally got a good look at myself in the mirror. Damn. My fading black eye coupled with the gash along the bridge of my nose and the scrapes on my cheek made me look like I had been in a fucking war zone.

Which wasn't that far from the truth, but still.

I sighed. I would just have to live with it till I could heal. I started out the door to my bus stop.

A long story short, life was Hell for the first three periods of the day, what with everyone asking what had happened to me and the teachers asking who the bully was. I finally signed a contract I wrote in class saying that anyone who talked to me about it wouldn't be acknowledged by me for five minutes after I showed it to them. That finally stopped the questions,but there were still the rumors.

The stories ranged from that I had been in a drug bust and barely gotten away, or was attacked by a ninja and barely escaped with my life. The craziest one I had heard was that I had gotten into a fight with Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee at the same time and won. Yeah right.

After lunch though, school got interesting. I started noticing little things, like the newly chewed gum stuck conveniently on the seat of my chair, or the lockers that suddenly flung open when I walked by. A was suspicious when I saw a kid with a face full of bruises following me through the hallways.

Great. They know I'm here. BitchAssJr was going to be here soon, I bet.

I made it into last period with only one incident of being tripped in the hallways, and one piece of gum I sat in. Mr Fagginston was the last of my concerns. I just wanted to get my work done and get out of school as quickly as possible. I didn't want another fight. I was still exhausted from yesterdays.

Mr Fagginston was watching me. I could feel it.

For once I didn't care. I just kept doing my work.

I finally looked up and saw an approving look on his face, he flashed me a smile and nodded, looking back down at the paper he was grading.

The rest of Fifth Block was uneventful.

The bell rang for class to let out. I walked up to Mr Fags desk to ask for my work from yesterday that I missed.

"Oh no. You have done excellently the past hour, you don't need any more work to dampen your day." He said.

I was surprised. Mr Fag wasn't being a fag.

"Thanks!" I rushed out of the room before he could change his mind.

I didn't get far.

"Ah, looky here. A Freshi bein' fresh. How typical." BitchAss was just outside the doors of the school.

"Lay off, numb nuts." I said, not even looking at him.

"Looky here Fresh-stuffs. You been messin wit my gang las night, an I don't preciate that. You goin na Hell, right now." He pushed himself off the wall and lunged at me. My soreness seemed to disappear.

I sidestepped him, reached out and grabbed his hair. His legs flipped it from under him as his upper body tried to stop the pain from his scalp.

I looked down at him in disgust.

"Does it bother you at all that I took out your whole fucking group of shitheads BY MYSELF?"

He gurgled an answer from the ground, "No, cuz I can do it too. Thas why I'm the fucking leader."

He jumped up, leaping back so I couldn't take advantage of the moment.

I looked at him, standing in a stance, stiff.

"An it doesn't bother you that I gave you that black eye some few days ago?" BitchAss hissed between his teeth.

"Ah, lemme think... No. And it would be 'a' few not 'some' few, dumbass." I was feeling really good. I pulled off my backpack and put it on the ground beside me, standing loose.

BA shuffled in, keeping his stance and guard up, like a boxer.

"Wow. Your cool," I said, drawing a light giggle from the audience.

He threw two punches in quick succession to my face. I leaned back, so he would just miss my face.

"Ooh, not far enough. Maybe you should try again."

I knew it was tempting fate, but I kept messing with him, making him madder and madder. Soon he would explode. This was what I was hoping for.

You see, I could tell by his stance and the way he beat the crap out of me earlier that he had had lessons in this crap, so I knew that if I could get him to attack, I could counter while he was off balance. I didn't have to wait long.

BA's face was so red with rage and embarrassment that he looked like a fucking Christmas elf with his green shirt.

"Ha! So Christmas is in early? Oh wait. That's just you."

The crowd was laughing freely at him, making him flush even more. He let out a scream of rage, hurling himself at me, fists flying.

I was ready. I knew he was a football player, so as soon as he lunged for my legs, I jumped. He did a face flaunt in the dirt, me landing softly on his butt. I stepped off his Ass and onto the ground.

"Well, I guess he just can't fight worth a damn, no show! Clear out!" I started waving the people off, grinning.

There was another cry of rage. This time he didn't charge me. This time he just threw a punch to my face. I bobbed out of the way, grabbing his wrist with my left hand, and pushing the back of his elbow with my right. His face was to the ground now.

"You like revenge, right? How's this." I clicked him in the face. "Now leave me alone!"

One of the teachers finally noticed us.

"Oh god! He's hurt! Somebody call the nurse!" I rolled my eyes.

I picked up my backpack and walked into the crowd. The teachers had saw me, but hadn't recognized me. In the commotion, she lost me. There were a few kids, obviously victims of this guy, who came up to me and whispered a good job as I walked to my bus. I grinned and allowed myself to relax. Nobody would snitch me out. That much I knew.

I got on the bus, feeling extremely good about myself. As I sat down, my fatigue came back in full, times 2. I slumped against the seat, suddenly sweating. I opened the window just in time to hear the teacher who broke up the fight telling Mr Fag what had happened.

"... It was a medium sized kid with long black hair..." I watched Mr Fags face darken.

I read his lips. He said my name. I slumped down in my seat and closed my eyes. There goes my grades. Suspension for me.

** to both who reviewed. You encouraged me to keep writing, and I thank you. If you want to see how I envisioned most of the first fight, look up Kid Coudi's 'Mr Rager' official video. It's pretty epic, even though Kevin isn't black.**


	6. To infinity and beyond Or a tube

**K, so first I'm gunna rage cuz my mom got pissed and went off on me cuz apparently I wasn't pulling in karate sparring, and my brother got a bloody nose and I don't even remember even freaking touching him, other than blocking. Second, has anyone noticed That in the 'Publish', the 'Rules and guidelines' section, that it says "Spell check all story and poetry."**

**Wait...**

**"Spell check all STORY and poetry."**

**Shouldn't it say STORIES and poetry?**

**And they tell us to spell check...**

**—**

I'm thanking God right now that my mom doesn't get home before I do. That gave me time to finish freaking out and then chill and get my thoughts together.

Fox was in my room, chillin' on my guitar. Damn, he's getting good.

I dropped my backpack off in front of my room, and flopped onto my bed.

Fox looked at me with an eyebrow raised "What's pulling your tail– er, I mean, what's up?"

"I beat the crap put of the Bitchy Junior before coming home—"

"Ah, good! Whats the problem then? He won't mess with you any more."

"AS I WAS SAYING, A teacher saw me, and so I'm going to get suspended when I go back. Hell my life'll get suspended when my mom hears about this.

"Ah. Well then, I guess you need a bit of good news then, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess I woul- Wait... Do you mean you HAVE good news?"

"Yup."

"Great! What is it!"

"I got a returned radio transmission today. The rest of my team should be here to get me by the morning of tomorrow."

"Oh. That is good I guess... But I just helped an alien, no offense, get back to space! What am I supposed to do after that? Sit and twiddle my thumbs as the silence communities debate on wether you are even out there? No! So what am I supposed to do, Huh? Tell me!" I was on the verge of yelling. I was a wreck from being about to be suspended, and I didn't want to lose my new friend, even if he didn't belong here.

"Well... I was planning on asking, but I didn't think you would want to do it, seeing as your mom is still... Alive... And all," Fox choked out that last part, "but, if you really want, we could use you on the team. Your fighting matches, if not bests, mine, and seeing the video games we've been playing all week, you MIGHT be pretty good at flying. MIGHT."

I couldn't believe my ears. I was going to go to space. As in light years away. To fight and be a mercenary. It was like a video gamers dream come true. And seeing as I'm a gamer, it was exactly that.

"R-really? You'd let me be a part of the team?" Fox had already told me all about how Star Fox was the best mercenary group in the universe (literally), and A little about Falco and Slippy, and Peppy, and the Corneria system, and all that crap, so I was freaking honored, "I would be honored."

Fox suddenly grinned at me. "Dude, you just got so serious it wasn't even funny." Then he started cracking up.

I laughed along with him for a while. And he didn't say anything.

"Wait... You actually mean it?"

"Yeah. Why would I mess around now? I mean, I got the message, they're coming for me, and I've found an amazing fighter. Why would I pass that up?"

I thought on that.

"I dunno... But I'm not sure 'amazing fighter' is the right term. I'm really not all that good by myself."

"Pshhh! Yeah, and taking out like 30 armed gangsters by yourself isn't good."

"I see your point, but it was only twenty. Nope! No! Shush! Don't say anything! Imma need ta get packed, and you distracting me isn't helping."

Fox snorted and crossed his arms, but didn't say anything.

I ran to the closet and grabbed one of those suction bags my mom always has for storing laundry. You fold and put the clothes in, then suck out all the air through a pump. For a science project last year, I had made a hand pump to make an almost vacuum chamber, so I grabbed that and some duct tape and modified the end to fit to the bags nozzle thing.

When I got my pile of clothes to fit into the bag, along with essentials like duct tape, my homemade hidden blade, a hunting knife, a flashlight, and my MP3 player, song with some other various items, I zipped it shut and pumped the air out. Then I ran to the cabinet and got the super glue, and glued some belts to make straps for a backpack. It weighed a ton, but it was small(ish) and wouldn't get in my way.

I glued on another little pouch for the pump and stuck it in.

I walked back to my room, considering something.

"Hey, Fox," I said hesitantly, "Do you think we'll be able to take my drum set? I don't want to get out of practice while we're 'away'."

"Hell, the Great Fox is big enough, but you could only take the drum set on one condition... That we take the guitar too." Fox grinned wolfishly (or foxishly, your pick) at me. I grinned back.

"Why would we leave that? I mean it's not like we're gunna come back here every time we need to practice."

Alright... I've got all essential items, plus my drum set, the guitar, and the speaker... Oh shit. Where are they going to pick us up? They can't just land a Fucking huge space station thing in the middle of town!

"Uh, Fox?" I said, the blood pounding in my head, "Where do you suppose that they'll pick us up? And what with? Cuz the Great Fox isn't just gunna land here and nobody notice it."

I would say Fox paled, but I couldn't really tell. "Oh shit. You're right. The ships shields are for lasers too, so your bullets would tear the ship to pieces... We gotta tell them to take the Arwings. There's no other way they could get here unnoticed."

I looked at him. He looked at me. We said simultaneously, "To the ship!"

We had ran the whole way there, and I wasn't tired. I suspect my space crystal helped.

But if the pattern held, that meant I would be exhausted In a minute or two.

I slowed to a jog as we neared the Tower with Fox's ship.

When we got to the ship, the exhaustion hit me full force. I wasn't breathing hard, but I felt like I just swam a Thousand Free for time.

I leaned against the ship and let my muscles go slack. I've found this is the best way for me to regain my energy.

After a moment of fox panting, I turned and hit the radio button like fox had done earlier.

"Alright. This is Kevin, and... Oh shit. They won't listen to me will they?" I said, turning to Fox.

"Probably not" He said, walking past me to get closer to the radio.

"This is Fox McCloud speaking. Members of Star Fox, do not come to the surface of this planet in the Great Fox. Do not come to this part of the planet during its day. You will be killed. Also, I have a friend who we are taking along. Don't shoot him."

I was super excited. There were real 'aliens' coming to my planet to come and pick me and Fox up like a couple of guys picking up their friend from his house. It was mind blowing to think about.

I was thinking about how cool it would be to be an interplanetary mercenary when my thoughts were interrupted by a squawking on the radio.

"Hey Fox, Falco here, i must have heard you wrong, but i thought you said you found someone you're taking along?"

"Yup, thats right." there was a pause before the next answer.

"Lets get this straight, we're coming to pick up your sorry ass off another uncharted planet and you find ANOTHER member for the team? Is it going to be like this with you every new fucking planet?"

I could hear the playfulness in his voice, but I could also tell Falco was cocky and was trying to act all cool. The usual shit you find on any planet I guess. Although, to be on the team, he had to have a reason to be all cocky. I heard another voice in the radio, a higher pitched one. It kind of grated on my ears, but I could tell whatever it was was smart.

"Hey Fox! It's great to hear you're all right! We should be there in about... Twelve centums. Give or take a few centimes. So be ready for us!"

"All right."

Fox switched off the radio, and started walking away from the ship. I followed him a while, and realized he was headed back to my apartment.

"Hey! Aren't we supposed to be getting ready to leave? I mean, they said they'd be here in like twelve minutes."

"No. Slippy said they'd be here in twelve centums. A centum is the universal unit of time in the galaxy. It's roughly two-anda-half minutes to your clock, so we've got about an hour before they get here.

Oh... Well tonight wasn't going to be as exiting as I would have liked. [This chapter isn't as exiting as I would have liked either]

We headed back to the apartment.

We rushed back into my apartment when we got there, grabbing the stuff we would need. I grabbed my pack, and the case I had thrown my cymbals and stands into. I had taken to drum heads out and stacked the drums up inside of each other. Now I was just carrying the big bass drum with the other drums inside, my pack, and the case with my cymbals, stands, and a few drum heads in it.

Fox's load was just about half as heavy as mine. He was carrying the speaker, and had the guitar slung across his back. He had other various items of his in the pockets of one of my pairs of pants that he was wearing.

I glanced enviously at him. He had half the crap and half the weight to carry, and was rubbing it in my face. He was carrying the speaker in one hand, even though I could tell he was straining to keep it up like that.

Why doesn't my super-power crystal thingy do much when I want it to?

I complained quietly the whole way back to the Tower.

When Fox and I got there, we dropped our stuff onto the slightly bloodstained floor of the building. It kind of scared me that I was the one who spilled most of the blood, but most of it wasn't mine. It reminded me of just how powerful I was now that I had the crystal.

Fox radioed to the rest of Star Fox to see where they were. This time there was no delay between transmissions. They must be getting close.

Fox had asked where they were, and the high pitched voice, Slippy, Fox had said, told him that he was using the radio waves to determine where we were through some kind of positioning shit. I understood almost half of what Slippy said, I'm sad to say, cuz I could tell that fox had gotten like, none of it.

Anyways, they were close. Like, directly-above-us-in-the-atmosphere close. I was starting to get butterflies in the pit of my stomach like I do before a long race. It was almost scary. It was exhilarating.

I was starting to think that maybe the team had been stopped by something when Fox called out to me. He was pointing to the sky. I looked, and saw two streaks in the sky that could easily have been passed up as asteroids. But they were getting closer. The ships were speeding to the ground at frightening speeds, past the speed of sound, I'd bet. But pulled up short of the ground, one doing a tight loop before touching down, the other just plain landing. The one that flipped opened with a hiss, a blue figure doing a backflip out, it's arms out parallel to the ground, it landed on one knee, one arm, or wing I should say, still out, the other was on the ground. He stood up.

This one must have been Falco.

'Wow. His mom was creative,' I thought 'I mean, naming a falcon thing Falco is super-duper creative. At least Slippys parents were... Oh.' I saw the other ship hiss open, and out hopped a frog-like creature. 'Never mind. His parents weren't very creative either. Toads are slippery, so call one Slippy. I get it. Though at least they were more creative than Falco's parents.'

All in all, I wasn't super impressed with the team. You had Fox, the great leader guy, skilled at everything except technology, then you had Falco, the usual football jock of space, and you had the nerd. I was mildly concerned about the shape of the rest of the galaxy if the best mercenary team was only what it looked like.

Falco and Slippy immediately went to Fox, Falco saying hey, and Slippy asking if he was OK and what had happened and if there was any trouble on the planet. When they finished their quick catch-up session, Falco looked at me with what I would call a sneer, but I couldn't be sure with a beak.

"So you're the new recruit, huh? Why do you think you're good enough to be on this team? This is a team for highly skilled professionals, not a charity for scrawny kids off the street."

I didn't like Falco already.

Slippy pushed past Falco and walked up to me, sticking out his hand. "Hi! I'm Slippy! Welcome to the team!"

"Thanks. Is this really all the team? I mean, you guys don't really look like much."

Slippy, being the chatty one, started babbling immediately. "Oh we'll we do have another member, but— Hey!"

Falco cut him off with a shove.

"BUT, they didn't come because they were not really needed here." Falco finished for Slippy.

"Huh. OK." I said, acting indifferent. I made a mental note to ask Slippy who the other team member was and why he didn't come.

"Alrighty then," Falco said, clapping his wings/hands together, "What are we going to do with Fox's ship?"

I looked at the ship and realized Falco had a point. We couldn't just leave this piece of technology lying around for some government agency to find, making people pre-maturely aware of aliens.

We all thought for a moment, Fox said, "Well, we could dump it back into the lake I originally crashed into. That would get rid of it for a while. The lake is pretty deep."

I nodded. "Yeah. Being the city park, not many people swim underwater here much either, so it might not be found for years after we've left."

"Good, now how do we get it there? This gravity is higher than most life-sustaining planets, so everything is heavier here." Slippy said, "We might not even be able to lift it."

I looked at Slippy, seeing that he wasn't lying, and Falco nodding only proved it was true.

"Fox and I carried it here from the lake by ourselves! It can't be that heavy!" I exclaimed.

"Well then you can do it again," Falco said smugly.

I was hating Falco almost as much as I hated Mr. Fag. But Mr Fag had a reason to be a fag. He was a teacher and knew how to deal with bitchy students. Falco's just being a fag to be a fag.

"Nah. Fox, Slippy and I will just sit here and watch as you try to get the thing out by yourself." I said sarcastically.

"Pshh! You know thats impossible! Jus cuz your bein' a bitch about what you and someone else did doesn't mean someone can do it them 'imself! In fact, let's see you try! I betcha five hundred credits that you couldn't move this thing to the lake!"

I turned to Fox. "How much is a credit? Like, how many meals can you buy for a certain amount of credits?"

"Well... Let's see... With 5 to 8 credits you could buy a decent meal at someplace like a fast-food joint." Falco was doing a poor job at hiding his laughing at me at asking this question.

"Well, that means its about the same as a dollar in USA money." I turned to Falco, "I accept"

Falco smirked. He thought he couldn't lose. I was hoping I wasn't remembering the weight wrong.

I walked behind the ship and pushed on the mostly hollow hull. I felt it rock forward slightly, but my straining was in vain. I couldn't move it. Falco started laughing at me again.

I got pissed. Someone had to show this freak a lesson. I redoubled my efforts. I felt the ship start to slide.

[A/N Shit. I just looked up an Arwing and found out its much bigger than I originally thought. Please bear with me, I didn't know, and I'm not about to change the whole story to accommodate. I'm going to try to resize it mentally as the story goes on.]

I felt satisfaction in knowing that I could move this and Falco didn't think he could. It was big, yes, but the wings had fallen mostly off and the whole inside was mostly gone or hollow.

I slid it, faster and faster through the door, my muscles burning with strain. I just thought of it like a 500 though. Kill yourself now. You can rest later. Falco was jeering at me the whole way.

I pushed for what felt like forever, but soon I made it to the top of the ridge leading down to the lake. It would be easy from here.

The nose of the ship slowly started tilting down, then sped up. Soon enough, I was almost jogging it down the hill.

I finally made it to the lake, and the ship flew right in into the lake with a ginormous splash. I ended up getting soaked, but the ship, still having some air in it, was floating to the center of the lake, slowly sinking.

I watched as the ship finally filled and sank below the surface. I turned around and grimaced. I hadn't thought of everything. The ground was torn up in a path to the lake where I had pushed the ship through the grass, tearing it up.

I walked back to the team, Falco glaring at me with crossed arms, and Slippy looking at me with open mouthed amazement. Fox was standing slightly behind Falco, smiling lightly and giving me a little thumbs up.

"Alrighty then! Let's get going!" I said with a lot more energy than I actually felt.

Another long story short, it was hell trying to pack everything into the Arwings. Falco complained the hell out of the whole situation. He was complaining to look cool, I know, but still, it got freaking annoying.

Now that I think about it, that's probably why Fox opted to ride with Slippy...

Falco is complaining about how stupid it was to be lugging a couple of 'noise makers' across the galaxy. I was trying to ignore him, checking to make sure all my cymbals and drum heads are still with us and in their places. I felt my anger rising. Fox had told me when he first started to hear my music that all they had in the rest of the Universe so far was either pure tribal drum beats, or crappy opera-like stuff from the way he described it.

Honestly, I felt sorry for the universe.

Having opera coming into existence is bad enough, but not having any other types of music? That's just sad. Though, it does make sense. If you had to cater to thousands of species worth of listeners, that could get pretty fucking hectic.

"Kevin?" Falco had been talking to me, apparently. Of course, I had zoned him out by now.

"Yup?"

"You ready to go? We've been sitting on this God awful planet for like, fifteen centimes now. I'm getting fucking hungry."

Of course. He wants to get away from my planet, and calls it 'God awful'. Just super polite and manner-full.

"'God awful'? This happens to be my planet you're talking about," I said.

"Oh yeah, whatever." Falco mumbled.

I suppressed my rage. Why was I so angry anyways? I was trying to get away too. Maybe its like a team pride thing. Your home team sucks, but it's still your home team, so you want to defend it.

I breathed a slow outward breath, trying not to hit Falco. I was sorely tempted, seeing as my crystal would supposedly give me super-epic fighting skills, but I didn't. I didn't want to be kicked off the team while still on my own planet. That would kinda suck.

"A'rite. Let's get going." I said, trying not to let the anger color my voice.

Falco ginned at me crookedly, "Now that's what I like ta hear!"

"Heh, yeah... Heh, heh." I said halfheartedly. I was getting tired and needed to get some sleep or I'd be dead by the next day, I knew that much about myself.

I climbed into the 'Arwing' as Fox had called it, and moved to cram myself in the back. The drums took up a lot of room, so I didn't have a lot to spare.

Falco hopped in, sliding everything closed and settling in his seat. He looked at me and grinned again, shaking his head. I heard the engine (or was it the thrusters?) start with a high pitched whine.

I felt the same thing as when an elevator starts going up. There is a little jerk, then it's all smooth. I watched clouds move past and took one last look behind me at my planet. I felt bad. Like, really bad. I was ready to kill myself for some reason. I almost broke down crying right there. My head was trying to work through the haze of depression as we left the atmosphere, but I wasn't getting anything.

Suddenly I got distracted by us passing the Asteroid belt. I swear I saw one of the Dwarf planets that they think are in there. My depression quickly faded and was replaced by an overpowering sense of curiosity. I wanted to see what was on the dwarf planets, even if there was nothing, but we were speeding away at super speeds. I heard a crackle in the radio and Fox's voice came on.

"Alright. Where are we and which way is the Great Fox?"

Falco pressed the radio button thing and said, "It is about 2 degrees to the left and a Lightterm away."

"Alright. Get in formation and we'll go Faarlight."

I was bubbling over with curiosity again, but this time at what they were saying. What was a Lightterm? Or a Faarlight? Hell, what did the Great Fox look like? How were we going to get there so fast? How were—

My train of thought was cut off as Falco hit something. There was a tremendous shudder within the ship, and then all of space seemed to be flashing by. I was at a loss for words. Space just seemed to be bending around us. We were speeding through the universe at untold speeds! I felt like I was in Star Wars. We just entered light speed. Or warp speed. Or however fast we were going.

I was overjoyed! I was ecstatic! I was fucking Freaking out!

My eyes were huge as I took in the surroundings. Which were all the same. It was like a white tunnel, or a large tube of lights, which were probably hundreds of stars.

White...

White...

White...

Board...

In a good few minutes, I was out.


	7. I'm sorry for this

**Ok, after this chapter, if I don't get 5 or more reviews, I'm done with this story, until I have five, then I'll start again.**

I woke up again to the sound of Fox talking on the radio.

"Alright. We're almost there. Get ready to pull into the Great Fox, and be home."

For a moment I thought I was back on earth, in the car with my mom, listening to one of those Books-on-tape things. But I wasn't. I was in space, with no home other than this great big spaceship in the middle of nowhere. Literally. We weren't even close to any planets or stars.

I groaned and pulled my head up sluggishly. I was even more tired than I had been before I fell asleep, somehow. It was killing me.

My head started kicking in, which was odd, because my head never works until, like an hour after I wake up. Not thirty seconds.

Falco was grumbling to himself, something about a cat and missing someone and Fox being a douche bag for dragging him out into the middle of nowhere for a rescue mission.

I tried ignoring Falco and concentrating on the whole Head-in-the-game-way-too-early thing.

As we were pulling into the hanger, I got an Idea of what it might be. I didn't have time to test it though, cuz Falco turned off the ship and popped open the overhead hatch.

"Alright, get out."

Geez. Blunt much?

"Alright just give me a second" I said.

"Alright. One. Now get out."

I scowled at Falco and muttered under my breath "Geez, who shit in your Sugar Puffs?"

I grabbed my stuff and got out of the ship, quite an accomplishment if you have all the crap to carry around that I did. Once I got out of the ship, I set my stuff down and stretched.

There was an amazing smell coming from somewhere, but I couldn't tell where. I heard Falco come up behind me and so I asked, "What's that smell?"

"Oh, thats food, y'know, the stuff you eat? Your room's this way." I was confused. Fox had only told me about Falco, Slippy, and Pepper, but nobody else. General Pepper wouldn't be on the ship, and all the others are in the room. 'Oh well' I thought. I started following Falco.

We walked up a flight (or metal spiral staircase) of stairs and walked down a hall. Falco walked like a man on a mission and didn't seem like he was going to stop at any of the doors, when abruptly, he stopped. He grabbed the door handle on the right and opened it.

"This is your room. Come to the kitchen in a coupl'a minutes for some grub."

He pushed me into the room and shut the door. I set my stuff down and realized I didn't know where the kitchen was. I turned and opened the door, and looked down the hallways, but Falco was already gone.

I shut my door again. "Well shit. How am I supposed to make it to the kitchen if I don't freaking know where it is?" I said to myself. "Oh well, I'll figure it out."

I surveyed my room. It appeared to be some sort of storage space at some point in time. It had empty boxes stacked everywhere, and there was a mattress, but it was flipped up onto its side and pushed against the wall.

I sighed. "Home sweet home."

After stacking all the boxes into a corner and setting the bed in a place kinda out of the way, I decided to be done redecorating for a day. I headed out my door and down the hall to try to find the kitchen from the way I came in.

I found my way back to the hanger by memory, and the smell I had smelled earlier was getting better.

It had smelled good when I left, it smelled amazing now. I could smell it by breathing through my mouth, it was so strong. It smelled like Jambalaya and Bratwursts and something mildly sweet all mixed together. It smelled like Heaven on Earth, and being a swimmer, I can appreciate food like that.

I followed my nose, feeling like I was floating down the halls, swallowing constantly to get the saliva out of my mouth. I soon arrived, my stomach grumbling and my head spinning with hunger. I must have looked hilarious, because as soon as I entered, the Star Fox team looked at me simultaneously. Falco burst out laughing, and Fox tried to hide a grin. Slippy just looked at me with a grin and looked back at the table.

"HAHAHA! Oh man! You should see your FACE! Aw, shit! Awwww shit! Priceless!" Falco kept laughing, and I just drifted my way over to the table, unable to process him laughing at me.

"Yeah," Fox said, "I forgot how people get when they smell this particular dish. Its an amazing recipe developed by the natives of Ceronia, but a stove is no match to a full out fire, so this wont be as strong as it would be."

"Thas' Fine" I wheezed out, and got back to drooling all over the place.

Fox chuckled at me, shaking his head. "Man, you need to taste it. It is AMAZING."

I concentrated long enough to get some of my wit back, "Im HERE to taste it, otherwise I would be... Kinda... Smells good... Hungry... Eat time, please..." My train of thought was hijacked by the smells again.

Falco busted up again, pointing at me.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man! Hahaha! Oh, your brain just went like PLOOPH." He crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out the side of his beak. I still didn't care, but this time I processed it.

"Kay, yeah, whatever." I grumbled.

Then I heard a new voice. It was feminine, yet slightly threatening, like, it gave the vibe, 'Don't mess with me or I'll kick your ass.' It said, "Hey boys, what's all the commotion about? It's not like you all to—"

The blue vixen walked out of the door in front of the table, and froze as she saw me standing in the doorway, the Star Fox team facing away from me. She looked startled, but I didn't get why.

"Fox! Falco! Look out!" She yelled, dropping the tray of food she was carrying. Luckily it landed on the table, although I didn't see why I cared about that when there was a streak of yelling Blue Vixen flying at me.

That's not something you see everyday.

My mind quickly went blank. And by that, I mean everything. I dropped to the floor like a rag doll, but apparently the crystal had a reason, cuz' the vixen just kept flying right over me, her yell turing into a startled questioning sound just as quickly.

She kept flying into the hallway, catching herself on the wall. I rolled backwards over my head onto my feet, coming up in a stance facing her, when I realized what I was doing.

This must be another member of Star Fox, which means that if I hurt her, I would have Hell to pay. It also crossed my mind that she was a girl and I wasn't supposed to hurt that particular race. Although I'm not sure if that rule applied to Anthro Fox women, cuz she seemed pretty ready for me to fight back.

She flung at me with controlled accuracy, throwing punches and kicks at me enough that would make my head spin if I had been thinking about it, but I wasn't. I was just reacting. Block, scoop, push leg away, lean, grab fist, pull her past me, block again; this battle was the most intense fight I had ever been in, although I haven't been in very many. It felt like an epic dance, she would gracefully attack, I would effectively, but not-as-gracefully, defend.

I almost felt a connection to her, and I tried to more fully open that connection. Then I realized something.

Somehow she was also attacking with her mind.

My barriers down, she slipped into my mind without a problem, which was a problem, because in her all out assault, she had let down her mental guards. When she made it into my mind, something clicked in my head. It felt like someone had snapped my brain.

I fell to the ground writhing with the biggest headache I had ever felt in my life. It was like someone was forcing a splinter of ice right through the back of my skull. My mouth was locked open in a silent scream, and my I couldn't see anything. The pain continued.

After a good half minute, the pain subsided to a barely bearable throbbing, which still felt like my head was split open, but hey, you get used to it. I noticed the blue vixen was on the floor too, tear streaks down her fur. I felt sorry for her, but when I tried to think of anything, the throbbing got worse.

'What the fuck was that?' I thought as soon as I could capably think without my head exploding. My consciousness was slowly bringing itself out of the tight ball it made around my core. I got up off the floor, which was hard enough in my condition, and started stumbling to my room. I didn't know where any of the other of the team was, and I didn't want to know. I just wanted to get to my bed and I got to the door, I heard a squeak, and then something hitting the floor. It must have been the vixen.

Lucky. At least she can pass out.

I stumbled the way back to my room in a haze, my eyes filling around the edges with red and black, and bright white spots were floating in my vision. The pain was so great that I was soaked by the time I got to my room. I collapsed onto the mattress on the floor, my head pounding. I rolled over and stuck my head off and away from the side. Then I threw up.

I fell back down, and curled up into a tight ball, whimpering in pain. That's how I drifted off to sleep.

**K, so I'm sorry about the wait, if any of you were even waiting, it's been finals week and my head has felt like shit for the whole week. Not as bad as Kevin's though. Sorry it's short, but I just needed to get it done, and any ideas you have, please do tell. Also, if any of you could comment and tell me if I should turn Kevin into an Anthro or not, please tell. Right now is the best time to, so if I get two or more yes then I'll do it. Still not continuing till five comments though.**


	8. Pancakes

**Thank you so much to everyone who commented! I didn't even know I had people reading the story! I just finished with finals week, so this chapter should be better than the last one.**

I woke up feeling like shit. I was thirsty, and my head felt fuzzy, and I still couldn't open my eyes cuz there was some kind of shit on them gluing them shut. Possibly from crying. I was also hungrier than a dead man.

Of course, throwing up right before I passed probably didn't help.

I groaned, and winced in pain as the inside of my throat felt like it shattered. I wanted to wipe the stuff out of my eyes, but my muscles burned any time I moved. I decided it would be best for me to lay there for a minute or two. Out of boredom, I started rubbing my fingers on my palm, and found my skin felt lumpy, almost like I had been burned.

I was interested, but I still couldn't do anything, so I just kept rubbing my palm, trying to keep myself from drifting off to sleep again. Soon enough, though, I got extremely board, and decided to try and move again.

It hurt like being stabbed with a red hot needle, but I managed to get my hand to my eyes. I tried wiping the stuff out, but to no avail, so I just picked at it until I could open my eyes. The whole thing took a good couple of minutes, but in my state, it was an accomplishment.

I realized I was no longer on my bed. I was in a brown room, not mine, which was grey. I sat bolt upright, and stiffened, tearing up. My body burned like I was in a fire. I whimpered briefly right after I found my lungs again, and I tried to blink to water out of my eyes. I glanced around, and realized I WAS in my room, I had just knocked down a pile of cardboard boxes, thats the brown I had seen.

I decided it would probably be best for me to try to get moving, so despite the pain in my everywhere, I forced myself to get up and the pained sounds to go down. I finally got myself onto my feet, and waddled to my bed, trying to use as little amounts of muscle as possible.

I don't know why, but I felt extremely cold, and the object on my chest was even colder, making it extremely uncomfortable. I painfully pulled off my necklace and dropped it onto my bed. Well, that source of cold was gone, but I was still freezing. I decided the pain wasn't worth putting on any of my shirts or sweaters, so I just waddled to the door and tried to turn the knob.

That simple act took me a good five or six minutes, but still, I was sorer than Hell. I finally got my door opened and waddled down the hallway, trying to make my way to the kitchen. My head throbbing had gone down, and I was thinking much more clearly. I noticed through my concentration on my movements that there was another delicious smelling something coming from the kitchen.

I hurriedly waddled my way there. I was starving.

I found my way into the dining room area, but didn't see anybody in it.

"Hello? Anybody there?" my throat was still sore, and I was more croaking than speaking.

I heard Fox's voice from the cooking area, "Hey, Kevin! You're the first one up! I hope you like these, cuz it's all we're getting for breakfast. We're running low on supplies, and will need to run to the nearest planets marketplace to get more. Oh yeah, yesterday, the— Woah." Fox walked out the door to the cooking area and finally saw me, "Dude are you OK? You sound bad, but I didn't expect you to look this bad."

"No," I croaked, "I feel like I was tossed into an oven and set on high for a fricking day-and-a-half.

Fox chuckled at that, "Yeah, honestly, you look like it too."

I took the time and pained effort to look down at myself. I was covered in little white lumps on my skin, the rest of which was a bright red. It looked like my whole body was a second degree burn. It felt like it too. At that moment, Falco walked in, looking like your average teenager just out of bed. His feathers were slightly ruffled, he was barely awake, and shuffled his way along the floor in his... Pajamas I guess. He yawned as he entered.

"Hey, gyz... 's there enythn' to eat? I'm starving..." He yawned again and shuffled to the table, his eyes closed. He fell into a seat and quickly fell asleep.

"Not a morning person, huh?" I croaked.

"Nope, not really at all." Fox replied, still watching Falco snoring.

There was a brief but very awkward silence that followed. I looked at Fox, who was staring into space, then back at Falco. And back again. And again.

"SO," I croaked, bringing my hands together with a smack, "what smells so good?"

"Huh? Oh. That'd be my pancakes." his eyes got wide, "Oh shit! There still cooking!"

I tried to laugh as he ran to the kitchen to get his pancakes out of... Whatever they were cooking in. Suddenly I was hit by a wave of smell. The already amazing smell of his pancakes just intensified. My mouth watered instantly, and I had trouble swallowing it all, since my whole body was busted.

I walked to the table and collapsed into a seat, losing myself on the mouthwatering smell. It was like heaven on earth. Or in space. Or wherever I was.

Suddenly, there was a click to my right. My eyes snapped open and I saw a huge plate stacked at least a foot-and-a-half high of pancakes. The scent was so thick in the air that I almost stopped breathing. I started reaching for the top pancake, but Fox stopped me.

"Nope," he said, blocking my path, "Give it just another couple of seconds."

"Why?"

Fox didn't even answer, he just grinned. He held up his hand and counted down from five.

As soon as the fifth finger dropped, the door opened and Slippy walked in, closely followed by the blue vixen from the night before.

Slippy looked only slightly tired, but the Blue Vixen seemed alert, even of she looked almost like I felt. When Slippy saw me he looked at me with his head cocked and a slight frown on his face. A second later he shrugged and kept moving. The vixen looked at me warily, like I was some kind of bug she had just found could sting you.

I watched her with the same feeling. Kind of a 'danger ahead' vibe. It was annoying to have to deal with like this. Tough as soon as Slippy walked by, the scent of the pancakes drifted back into my nose from his wake. I forgot about everything else.

I sat there salivating, the others sitting down around me, but I didn't notice. As soon as everyone was seated, we passed plates (or some kind of food-holding utensil. It was weird, almost like a tray) and grabbed a couple of pancakes to start ourselves off. Of course, Fox, Falco and I grabbed four each, but Slippy and the Vixen only grabbed two. There was still a stack left, but it was rapidly diminishing.

I almost started to stuff my face right there, but I remembered that there was a lady at the table. I needed to follow 'the eating rules' as my mom had named them. If there was one thing she had taught me, that was it. Etiquette.

I looked to the side of my plate, but didn't find a fork, or knife, or spoon for that matter. I was confused for a second, but then I remembered that I was off my planet. I glanced around to see how the Vixen was eating, because if anyone knew how to eat properly, it was her.

To my surprise, she was eating just as Falco and Fox were. Ravenously tearing into the pancakes. The only one not wolfing everything down was Slippy. He was eating it the same, just more slowly. Oh well.

I tore into my first steaming pancake. I immediately stopped and chewed longer. Whatever Fox had out in there, it was amazing. It was gooey inside, but the edges were slightly crusty, and they tasted... Tasted like... Deliciousness. Deliciousness in a small gooey, amazing package from heaven.

To make a long story short, we finished all the pancakes. Me eating the majority of them.

After finishing, I sat back contentedly, my stomach distending considerably. I sat there just enjoying the feeling of not moving my pained body, when I heard someone get up to leave. I glanced up, and saw the vixen walking towards the door.

Fox leaned back and grabbed her wrist as she walked by saying, "Ah! No. Krystal, get back here."

Krystal. Well, ain't that ironic. Yesterday I was fighting crystal against Krystal.

"Krystal," Fox continued, "I want you to meet Kevin. He is joining the team."

Her eyes widened, "What!"

"You heard me, he's joining the team. You need to get used to him. I want you to talk about what happened yesterday."

Krystal sighed heavily but sat down.

"Alright. You there. Telepath. I jumped you yesterday because you were blocking me from your mind and I didn't know you were there." I started to try to say something. "Hep! Nep! I'm not finished. No. Yes, I am a telepath as well, no, I don't read your mind just because I can, yes, I only use my skill to tell if people are around. Happy now? I only jumped you cuz you startled me."

I was still trying to process this, but only one statement surfaced.

"But I'm not a telepath" I said, mildly confused.

Krystal's eyebrows creased. "But you were blocking me from your mind yesterday! You have to be a telepath!"

I felt a pressure in my head, and realized that, hey, she was invading. I let my mind go blank, trying to see if that would block her out.

"Hmm..." she said frowning slightly. "we'll you're not actually a telepath, but all your recent memories are fuzzy. Why is that?"

'Damn. She still got through.' I thought, but I croaked "Probably because I have had so many changes in my life happen so fast I haven't fully comprehended it."

"Well, maybe," she said shrugging, "But I'm going to take one more look." I felt the pressure in my head increase again. But this time I was determined to keep her out. I forced myself to stop all my thinking except for one. I ran that one thought through my head forcefully, and repeatedly, my will as hard as steel. The pressure went away.

Krystal's eyebrows furrowed even more, and I felt the pressure again. I forced my thought harder. Suddenly Krystal's eyes widened and she randomly yelled, "These pancakes are delicious!"

Fox looked startled.

"Um... Thanks?"

I realized what had happened and a grin spread on my face.

"Sorry, that was me" I croaked.

Falco looked at me and, after a moment, burst out laughing. He slowly realized I wasn't joking.

"Wait," he said, the mirth still in his voice, "If you made her say that, you would have to be telepathic, but Krystal just said you weren't. How does that work?"

My grin painfully widened.

"When she was pushing into my head, I only thought that sentence, and I guess that when I pushed her away hard enough, I pushed that thought into her mind."

Krystal looked stunned.

"But you've never had any training! You're not telepathic! Otherwise I would have picked up on it!" she sounded almost panicked.

I threw a theory that just popped into my head out. "I think when we fought last night that when you slipped into my head, your mind went flush with my mind and opened that part of my head up to me. Cuz I've had a headache, and that would explain that, and the whole..." my voice trailed off as I realized how ridiculous my theory sounded.

Falco looked from me to Krystal incredulously. Then he burst out laughing.

"Hahahaha! Oh jeez! Do you realize how stupid that sounded? It's like you—"

"No." Krystal interrupted, her eyebrows furrowed, "It makes sense. Most people only control three to five percent of their brains. A telepath has more like nine to fifteen percent control. That why we can read the signals from other peoples brains. We are more in-tune with our brain waves." She frowned again. "But the whole me-unlocking-your-brain doesn't make much sense."

"hey," I said holding my hands up, "that was just a theory."

"Maybe" she said, looking at me, again, like she would a bug she just found could bite.

I winced as I grinned again, feeling the soreness in my face all over again. There was a brief silence.

"Yeah. I'm going back to my room. I want to stretch. Or sleep. Or both. So... Yeah." I said, everyone looking at me, but lost in their own thoughts.

I tried to walk back to my room with less stiffness than I felt, which was much harder than it sounds, cuz I was SORE.

When I finally got there, I shut the door and leaned against the wall, thankful for the support. I knew stretching would help somewhat, but I really didn't feel like doing anything.

I hobbled over and collapsed onto my bed.

I was asleep almost instantly.

Oh God. Why?

I couldn't move my anything without pain. It was even worse than this morning.

I felt like crying because of all the pain. But I didn't. I was stronger than that. Or at least I forced myself to be.

I gathered my will power and forced myself to sit up. This time I did tear up. And I nearly cried out.

No. That wasn't good enough. I tightened my jaw and forced down my tears. I would be strong, no matter the pain, no matter the challenges.

I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the pain my body was flooded with. I narrowed my eyes and pulled my elbow to my opposite shoulder. It hurt like hell, but I knew this stretching would only make it better.

A few hours of self inflicted torture, I left my room, barely stiff at all. It still hurt slightly, but at least I could move now. I walked around the ship, trying to find everything and commit it to memory. The kitchen, my room, and the spacecraft hanger were already there, but there was still more than three fourths the ship to be explored.

Soon enough, I found the most interesting room in the ship. The armory/training room.

It was a dream come true for me. There were blasters of all sizes, dummies, targets, and some contraption that looked really cool.

I picked up the hexagonal object, and turned it over in my hands. It looked slightly like a button, so of course I pushed it. I felt a blue pulse of something flash out around me. It felt cool, but I still didn't get what it did. I shrugged and put it down. The blasters had caught my attention.

I walked to the table with the blasters on it, and looked at the different types. They all were different in some way. Some were thicker, some thinner, some longer, or shorter, or glowed slightly at the base of the barrel. I knew that meant some were for different things, and so I decided it was time to find out what.

I picked up the first gun, a short, thin barreled gun, and shot at the target at the far end of the room, like fifty meters away, and completely missed.

"Damn. I suck at aiming." I muttered to myself. I held the gun up straight and looked down the sight, steadying it with my left hand. I shot three shots in quick succession. This gun absorbed all the impact, but the three shots were flying far away from each other. I realized that part of my miss was the gun. It was super inaccurate. Though considering the short barrel, that made sense.

I picked up another gun off the table, this time almost the complete opposite of the one I just had. It was long barreled, and a medium size. Also, it was heavy, but not unbearably so, just heavier than the other one. It seemed uncomfortable in my hand, but I wanted to try it anyways.

I turned and shot at a closer target, hitting it close to the middle, only an inch or two off. This one had recoil. It butted against my palm whining high pitched, the very faint glow on the end of the barrel changing from a green to a deep red. I looked at it curiously, the whining growing higher, then stopping, the light turning green. I shot at the target again, this time aiming, and still hitting a good inch off the center.

I quickly turned and shot at the target across the room again, but the gun only half shot. The plasma, or whatever it shot, flashed out of existence close to halfway across the room. The gun recoiled furiously, jarring my shoulder. I heard a chuckle, and spun around, pointing the gun in that direction.

"Hey there, calm down." Fox said, holding his hands up from the door. I could hear the amusement in mis voice.

I lowered the pistol, holding it like you see in those movies, a wide stance, both hands on it, pointing it to the ground. I thought I must have looked pretty epic, but Fox just chuckled again.

"What?" I asked, my pride stinging.

"Oh, nothing. Its just that you only have to hold it like that in a mission. They turn off."

I felt my face flush.

"Ah, no worries" he said, walking towards me, "You're new in this whole better technologies thing, you wouldn't have had any way to know. Oh, by the way, those guns there, they all have their special circumstantial use, like the one you started on, it's for stealth missions. It makes basically no sound, it's small, and it has a super high firing rate, so you can shoot basically as fast as your fingers can move. The one you're holding, you should wait till the light turns green before you shoot."

Of course the light was green by now. It only took about a second-and-a-half to two seconds to turn lights. I turned and fired at the target across the room, missing the middle by only a half a foot.

Fox raised his eyebrows at that. "That's pretty good," he said, "That guns speciality is its balance. It has a bad-ish firing rate, but that comes with fast and powerful shots, and OK accuracy."

I looked at him skeptically, "OK accuracy? That was great accuracy! I nearly got center from fifty meters with a PISTOL."

"I know, but it's mostly not that accurate. Try again to see."

'Alright,' I thought, 'this should be easy enough.'

I lifted the pistol and shot, barely aiming, this time hitting slightly under my previous shot.

"Oh! What now! What. Now." I yelled in triumph.

"Damn, you're pretty good with that one. You should come practice with it more often." Fox said grudgingly

"I think I will," I said smugly.

Fox turned to leave, but stopped at the door frame.

"Oh yeah, we're going to be landing on a planet soon. We need supplies, so we're going to pick them up there. We might end up being there a few... Days I guess you would call them."

I grinned at him.

"Sweet,"

Fox grinned back, then left. I went back and shot a few more targets, then remembered something. I had forgotten to ask fox what that weird-looking contraption thing was. Oh well. I'll get 'im next time.

**Thank you to anybody who was bearing with me through that, and to those of you who were hoping, yes, Kevin will be an Anthro, but it'll take another chapter or two to get him there. I still have a scene I have planned that I want him to be human for. Again, any Ideas for the story after this chapter would be appreciated, and tell me if you want me to start some kind of adventure against a threatening alien force. If so, also tell me what kind of powers these aliens should have, and I'll try to do the rest.**


	9. Big tree

**Ok, really quick, I've had a request (kind of) for Kevin to stay human, so if you want, I'll go with majority rules, because I don't care. If you want him to stay one way or another, please say so. Thank you. **

**I've got a poll up on my profile, so if you would, please vote there.**

We flew the whole Great Fox to the planet, and we were currently flying down to the surface. The whole team was in the control room looking out the front window. The surface of the planet was mostly forest, and looked almost like earth, other than the mile high trees and the fact the trunks were blue, not brown.

During our decent, I saw a couple of animals, possibly the intelligent species, but I'm guessing since they aren't Anthro that they are just animals. We flew for a couple of minutes, trying to find a town I guess. It was pretty boring.

I watched a small dragon-like flying animal zip past the window. It had two sets of wings, one closer to the front, and one farther back. Each pair flapped at different times, it's little spindly arms tucked close to its body while the more muscular legs extended straight out, a thin membrane stretched across them.

As I turned my head back from watching this creature, I saw little puffs of smoke in the distance. That was where we seemed to be headed.

The control room had been silent before. Not an awkward silence, but a kind of mutual nobody-wants-to-talk kind of quiet. But Fox broke that.

"Alright everyone. We are going to land in a few centums, so everyone get ready. We may end up being here a few days."

Alright. That wasn't expected. Not that I was bothered by being on another planet. In fact, I enjoyed being here. There was a thrill of knowing I was on a planet containing life that not even the smartest of my race knew about.

As we got closer, I felt something in my gut. It was that feeling you get when you know you're forgetting something, but can't figure out exactly what it is. I started patting my pockets, trying to feel anything that may be amiss, but nothing... Wait. My necklace crystal is gone.

I felt the panic well up in my chest for a moment then forced it down. It couldn't be anywhere other than where I had been on this ship. Let's see...

Got it. When I was hurling, I had taken off my necklace and thrown it somewhere. I walked out of the control room, but as soon as I rounded the first corner, I took off running. I needed that necklace.

I sprinted down the hallways to my room and threw my door open, gasping for breath. I basically fell into my room and started searching. I looked across my room and the panic started welling up again. It wasn't there. I took another moment to search, but still didn't find anything.

I was panicking now. I was breathing hard and scrambling across my room haphazardly, always avoiding the dry puke stain though. I even flipped my mattress, but to no avail. Soon I was around the room like a tornado, tearing down towers of boxes, shifting through everything to try to find my necklace. I was just about ready to cry. Without that necklace, I was nothing.

I flipped my mattress, and threw around boxes.

No, not there, or there... Or there, or there or there. Come on. No, no no NoNoNo NO NO NO NO! CRAP! It's not ANYWHERE!

I punched down on one of the boxes, my fist going right through it.

I cursed my luck.

I slumped down on my mattress, all my anger gone. Now all I felt was sadness and a serious amount of nervousness. I no longer had my crystal. I was no longer of any use to the team. What if they took me back to Earth? What if I wasn't allowed to stay any more?

I wasn't expecting the knock at my door. It broke me out of my self pity and set me back to thinking streight. I was going anyways. Hopefully I could get somebody to teach me how to fight before my first actual fight. Then I wouldn't seem like I sucked so bad.

I lost myself to a make believe fight in my head, imagining how epic I would look.

"Hey, you in there?" It was Falco.

I had completely forgotten somebody was at my door. "Oh. Yup, I'm here!" I called out to him.

"Alright then hotshot, get out here, were about to land."

I hardened myself to my feelings and forced myself to get out there. Falco was leaning against the wall opposite my door, staring off into space with a bored expression. I looked at him, trying to look as calm as possible.

"Alight, let's go."

The longer I was away from the crystal, the better it seemed. I didn't need it. I mean, we were only going to get supplies right? Why would I need it for that?

I was walking between Fox and Falco towards the large city-like village in the forest. They had been giving me the low down about the planet in general as we walked across the hanger and onto the dirt road.

This was a basic planet, still following it's age old customs of tribal settings and houses and stuff, but has the high tech stuff that benefits the communities with little things that could create big problems, like medicine, or interplanetary trade, were updated.

They had imported stuff that worked effectively, and they had the hangers for the outerworld ships to land in, but stuck with their traditional almost everything else.

I was trying to take it all in when we passed the first group of children.

They were a group of little little kids, say, five to six years old at max. And of course, they were Anthro. This particular group of kids was made up of all kinds of animals, rabbits, a squirrel, a fox, and some birds, things like that.

When they saw us passing, they ran up, laughing, and grabbed Fox's, Krystal's, Slippy's and Falco's hands. For the next minute or two they walked with us, babbling happily in some native dialect I couldn't understand. A few of the kids were running around us, playing what looked like tag, weaving in and out of our group.

More children were joining us as we walked, I watched them smiling. It made me happy to see that even children of other planets were as innocent and— well, childish— as they were back home. I looked at a little girl bunny and smiled, trying to be friendly, and maybe make a good impression on them.

The little girl tilted her head down and let her ears cover her face. She peeked through the slit her ears made and flashed a smile back at me, then scampered off to another group of bunnies on the edge of our small sea of kids.

I frowned slightly, noticing for the first time that there were no children actually near me. They were holding hands with the rest of the group, but they all gave me a wide berth, and anytime one got near, they would look at me shyly and dart off in the other direction.

I moved over to talk to Fox.

"Hey, why are they avoiding me? Do you know?"

Fox glanced around, seeing that what I was saying was true. Even the kid holding his hand from my side had run off somewhere to get away.

"I dunno, Maybe—"

"They think you look funny. No one has seen anything like you before. They're just shy." Krystal interrupted, looking just as happy as I had been a minute ago.

I frowned. There was nothing to be afraid of from me. I wasn't gunna hurt anybody. Why didn't they want to come close?

I walked in silence for a few minutes, pondering deep thoughts of nothing, walking alone, when a ball hit my foot. I looked up, and saw that one of the little kids had overshot the ball, and now it was at my feet. Being scared of me, the kids had no idea what to do. I picked it up, motioning for one of them to come get it.

A small cat, I'd say six or seven, cautiously walked to me to get it, his ears streight up in caution. He finally got close enough to get the ball, and looked up at me expectantly. I smiled at him again, and gave him the ball, I rubbed his head like I would a cat at home. He looked back up at me with a smile, then ran off to join his friends.

I felt kind of sad that he left, and I was alone again, but then I realized I wasn't. The little bunny from earlier had come back and was looking up at me again shyly. I reached my hand out to her and she took it, walking beside me beaming. After a few minutes more of walking, though, some of the kids had gotten tired and gone home, and others were dragging behind, including the little bunny on my hand.

Sensing her fatigue, I let go of her handgrabbed her, and put her on my shoulders. She squeaked when I first grabbed and picked her up, and she was stiff up on my shoulders for a second, but once she got used to it, she relaxed and started laughing, pointing around with one hand while the other had a handful my hair, her ears bouncing in time with my step.

The team looked at me funny. I looked back at them the same.

"What? You never heard of a piggy-back ride?" Fox laughed, grabbing one of the kids beside him and put them on his shoulders too. The kid looked scared for a second, then started laughing just like the bunny on my shoulders. Then I realized something.

"Wait, you all really HAVENT heard of a piggy-back ride?"

Fox looked at me with a small grin, "Nope!"

I laughed at how ecstatic the kids on our shoulders were, pointing and laughing at things, and waving to their friends waaaaay down on the ground.

Again, we were walking. Another few minutes passed, this time kids were running close to me and holding my hand too. I was the happiest I had been in a long time.

But it wasn't to last. As soon as we got close to the city, which we had been approaching all these minutes, there were more and more adults that saw us from their houses surrounding the city. Of course, it only took a few seconds for one of them to recognize the Star Fox team.

"It's Star Fox!" I heard them yell.

Fox's smile disappeared, and I heard him mumble, "Crap."

He put down the kid and turned to look at me, saying grimly, "I forgot to tell you to look out for the reporters and fans. It gets crazy around cities."

Of course, me being me, I was nervous. I was not used to being looked at by large crowds, even if just because I was traveling with someone famous. I was really hoping that these reporters weren't like the paparazzi back on earth. That would suck.

By now i had put down the bunny on my shoulders, and they had all run off because all the adults were swarming us now, asking us questions, trying to shake the teams hands, mine included for some reason, or just to touch them, mainly Fox.

"Hey," I asked Fox, "Are these reporters for some kind of newspaper or are they going to be like an intergalactic television thing?"

He leaned his head towards me and shouted over the roar of adults talking, "They're for the TV, and they're going to follow us anywhere just to get a couple of pictures."

Crap. They were paparazzi.

I cringed at the thought, knowing I had never been good with crowds, let alone crowds looking in my general direction. Thats when I started seeing what I guessed looked like cameras.

The reporters soon crowded us, shoving the rest of the civilians out of the way to get a good shot. They were shouting all kinds of questions, even crap like what their favorite colors were. I was, of course, cringing behind Fox, who had his jaw set and was marching through, not answering a single question. Falco, on the other hand, was loving it. He was answering any question he could, even walking slowly so he could answer more.

Krystal grabbed Falco by the arm and marched him right after me and Fox. We were in town now, kind of a Tree-Top village, with bridges and ladders everywhere, as well as houses carved into the trees. We were walking down the main dirt road (on the ground of course) toward the biggest damn tree I'd ever seen. It was like the size of the one in that one movie, Avatar.

I walked in the lichen curtain at the entrance, following Fox. I was blinded by light. We had been traveling under the forest canopy, but this tree was hollow, and had no leaves to block the light. I could see the shape of Fox in front of me, so I followed his silhouette through my blind moment, and as soon as my eyes adjusted, my jaw dropped.

It was the biggest mall in the history of malls.

It traveled upwards in a constant spiral, the middle a big tube, different shops carved into the walls along the upward slope. There were all kinds of normal things in it, like clothes, towels, and different household products; and then there was all the stuff I had no idea what it even did. I even saw some kids playing with little hover crafts, and some kind of laser tag game. I didn't even realize I had stopped until all the reporters started jostling me forward, then I jogged to get back up with the guys.

I caught up with Fox and just enjoyed looking at all the wonders around me for a few minutes.

Then I realized we were still going up.

"Hey Fox," I asked hesitantly, "Where exactly are we going again?"

He glanced up at me and then glanced forward again, and muttered through the side of his mouth, "To get supplies."

'OK,' I thought, 'He's either pissed at me for something, or he's as nervous as I am around reporters.'

Judging by his stiff tail, jerky motions, and darting eyes, it was the latter.

I shrugged and kept walking beside him, admiring the different shops and losing myself in the dull roar of conversations swirling in the air around me.

We went through another few loops around the ramp before we stopped before one of the biggest food store I'd ever seen in my life. It was the size of a regular supermarket, but it was pure food. There were no other items. I looked at Fox to see if this was our stop. He glanced back, nodded, and walked right in.

That was the biggest shopping spree I'd ever been on. We had grabbed everything we could possibly need for months, including what looked just like flower, but was a curious shade of red and was slightly sweeter (yes I tasted some), salt of some kind, called something else of course, and candy out of the wazoo.

The three hours we were in there shopping had left me exhausted. I was barely able to stay awake, and my feet were pinched in my shoes.

We made our way back to the ship with a line of people (hired of course) pushing our big carts full of food behind us, following.

Long story short, we walked all the way back to the ship.

"Damn too long again" Falco groaned as soon as we got the last cart of food into the Great Fox.

"We need a list so we don't have to go in and sit there DECIDING what we want. We need to be able to go in, get our crap, and get out." he flopped down onto a hammock that was set up against a wall.

I must say, I agreed with Falco for once.

Fox dropped the box he was carrying and leaned back, his back popping, and groaned.

"Alright, I don't know about you all, but I need some sanity after all that."

"What do you mean?" I asked curiously.

"I'm going to a Grubsta, weather any of you all come or not." and with that he turned and walked back out the door.

Falco, who was reclining on a hammock, put his wing in the air.

"I'm in." and followed.

Krystal shook her head and went further into the ship.

I was still curious as to where we were going, so Hell with it, "Imma coming." I called, jogging after Fox.

**Done, again, tell if you want Kevin human or not in the Poll on my profile. Also if you could, please give me some ideas, and I'm hoping to put some kind of fight in the next chapter, so if you no gusta, tell. Also, I've got a twist I hope to put into the story, but again, I need some type of enemy speicies or group to fight, so if you have ideas, tell. I'm done.**


	10. I need to find it

**Alright, so far, I've only had a few 'votes', and they've all been for Kevin to stay human, so I'll keep him like that unless an overwhelming opposition breaks out.**

We had walked out of the Great Fox and streight into the thick woods, avoiding the reporters camping out in front of the ship. We were now walking through the shadows of the forest, back to the city. I groaned inwardly at the prospect of walking all the way back to the city. Although the redness and the hard, bubble-like formations on my skin had gone down, they were still there, and my soreness was starting to come back.

Despite my bodily protests, I walked all the way without complaining once. When we made it, we kind of snuck around, mostly staying in shadows, and darting around, trying to make sure we weren't seen. Fox seemed to know exactly where he was going, so I didn't feel the need to ask.

A good fifteen minutes later, we arrived deep in the city, still slinking around in the shadows, but it was getting dark, so it wasn't too hard. We broke off the main road pretty quickly, taking side paths and going through alleys smelling of piss, but eventually we ended up at a wooden building, with a sign with (obviously) alien writing on it. Fox walked streight in, Falco and I following.

I walked into the dimly lit room full of tables with some kind of impression that it was some kind of boxing or fight club, possibly to help Fox and Falco train, but I was utterly mistaken.

Fox walked through the room with confidence, silencing conversations and drawing the stares of more than just a few of the people sitting around the room. He walked right up to the long wooden counter at the front and motioned to the man behind it. The man took one look at Fox and said,

"I presume you'll be takin' the usual, aye?"

Fox just nodded.

The tension was building in my muscles. The man behind the counter was busying himself with some kind of task, and the whole room seemed to be made of shadows, leaning in, getting ready to stab us in the back and gruesomely...

"Alright, 'ere y'ar, jus' like ye norm'ly get. A'rite everyone," he said, raising his voice to address everyone, "This is Fox McCloud. He's a regular 'ere, an' a good friend o' mine, so I don' want no trouble for 'im, or it'll jus' be trouble back t' you."

The dull roar of the room came back slowly. But the man had slid something across the table, which Fox had picked up. He brought the strange object up in front of his face... and took a drink.

Then it clicked. How had I not seen it before? We were in a bar. The tables, the customers drinking, the tavern-like building. It all made sense, but I hadn't made sense of it.

Fox brought the cup down from his muzzle, and wiped his mouth with his wrist, then grinned at me.

"So what do you want? They've got..." and he went off to name a series of complex and alien names, which I couldn't remember, let alone repeat if I wanted to. This left me still mildly confused from the whole transitioning-from-threatening-to-mildly-friendly environment, so - my mind working at top speed - I came up with a brilliant solution.

"Uhh... Um, I'll take the first one..." I mumbled stupidly.

"Alright then," Fox said enthusiastically, "And you Falco?"

And Falco, looking completely uninterested, said, "I'll go with the (spouts off random completely unpronounceable alien name like its nothing)"

Fox, who was now leaning back on the counter, holding himself up by his elbows, cup still in hand, turned his head to face the bartender and said, "You got that?"

The bartender didn't even bother to reply. He was already busy making the drinks.

I can honestly say I was feeling slightly guilty. My mom had made it clear that she didn't want me drinking alcohol until I was at least able to support myself financially, and I already felt like I was going behind her back to have some thrilling adventure, but I derailed my train of thought right there. I had already ordered, and they were almost done, so just this once couldn't hurt, right?

Right.

I leaned against the counter with a firm resolve. I heard a sharp click on the bar beside me, and heard the bartender say, "Yer up,"

I turned and looked at the green liquid before me. I suddenly got really nervose. What if this stuff was poisonous to me? What if it was like, pure arsenic, or cyanide, or something? What if it would make me throw up? What if...

Nope!

I stopped thinking and put the drink to my lips and took a quick gulp. The liquid burned down my throat, leaving a sour taste in my mouth and my eyes watering.

"You all LIKE this stuff?" I choked out.

"You drank it too fast. Just take a sip," Falco said, rolling his eyes. Fox burst out laughing, and my face turned red as I realized that this is exactly what Fox had done with soda back on Earth.

I brought the drink to my lips again and took a small sip, still thinking the sour taste would ruin the drink for me, but I was in for a surprise.

The liquid entered my mouth sour and bubbly, almost seeming carbonated, but as I held it in my mouth the taste changed. It went from a bitter and sour taste to a salty and nutty taste, like peanuts, only with a slight fruity tang. I was amazed at the taste changed, and it must have shown (all my emotions do don't they? I'll have to work on that), because Falco was smirking at me and Fox was almost to the breaking point again with laughter.

I looked at the table and mumbled, "It's pretty good..." while trying not to smile. It wasn't super amazing, but it was good. Fox grinned at me, then looked back at the bar tender.

"Alright, then we'll take a few more!"

I never thought I would get drunk. Ever. But that's what I was. I think.

The lights around me seemed to smear when I moved my eyes, like a slow camera trying to catch up, and my head was buzzing slightly with an uncomfortable pinch in the back of my skull. I had almost missed part of the door when Fox, Falco, and I were leaving, but they were worse. I had only taken a few drinks, but Fox and Falco had each gotten twice as much as me.

Fox and Falco left stumbling around side by side, singing a bar song we'd just heard throwing their arms around wildly, each carrying another bottle of the drink we'd been drinking.

They were obviously accustomed to it, but I was feeling sick. They stumbled down the road, but I had stopped. My head was throbbing at the motion of walking, and the world seemed to be spinning around me. I still had some coherent thought and sense, which was telling me to get out of the middle of the road.

I leaned my forehead against my arm on the wall of the alley and closed my eyes. The world wouldn't stop spinning! My face felt hot, and my stomach was squirming and burning. I told myself I needed to catch back up with Fox and Falco, but my stomach...

Then I threw up.

And felt much better.

My puddle of puke was soaking into the dirt in the side of the alley, and I just watched it, letting my head clear. There was still a buzz and a fuzziness to my thought, but I was much more capable of thinking than I was before. I pulled my head off the wall and spat, trying to get the taste of my tongue and the acid off my teeth. I turned to follow Fox...

And ran face to face with a panther and some kind of lizard.

"Hey..." I said, not fully comprehending the situation.

"So you seem to be hanging out with Star Fox..." the lizard said tilting his head slightly sideways and narrowing his eyes while giving me a maniacal grin.

"Mmm... Yup, jus' gotta go follow them an' get back t' th' ship," I slurred, trying to stumble past the panther and lizard.

"Well now, Panther can't just let you do that, now can he?" The panther said pushing me back up against the wall. That's when It started to dawn on me that I was in danger.

The lizard laughed erratically, and the panther punched me in the face.

I slumped down the wall, all the sluggishness fading. I was being attacked, and I didn't have my crystal. Great. Of course I get attacked my first day without my crystal. Thank you, Murphy.

I pushed myself up and away from my attackers and watched them warily. I need to try to mimic what I would do with the crystal. Normally I would dodge a punch and then bob in and throw one of my own, but what if— WHAM! I got another punch to the face.

I stumbled backwards, blood dripping from my split lip. I wouldn't let myself give up though. I stood up streight again and put my hands up in front of my face like a boxer. The lizard cackled again, and the panther chuckled.

"Oh, a persistent one, are we? Well then, Panther will just have to take care of that!" he side-kicked me with the last word, catching me in the stomach, then pivoted, and kicked me in the face when I doubled over. I could feel a bruise forming as I fell to the ground.

The panther saw the bruise and laughed, saying, "Your species is so weak! A bruise already? Panther is doing good today!"

I saw him move again, but I didn't care much this time. I just curled up into a ball, physically and mentally, trying to shield myself from any pain coming my way.

"Hey!" I heard a voice call. "What are you doing?"

It sounded familiar, but I was in a mental shell, shutting myself from the outside world. There was a shuffle, and the sound of running feet, then the sound of someone walking closer. My body tightened up as I felt a hand on my shoulder. I heard the voice, Fox, saying, "Hey, they're gone, you can get up."

I let my body and conciseness uncurl, and got up.

"So much for a great fighter," Falco muttered, swaying on his feet a few feet away.

"Oh come on, he's drunk you prick!" Fox shot back.

As if to emphasize his point, I doubled over and started throwing up again. When I finished, I spit, wiped my mouth on my sleeve, and motioned for them to lead the way. We walked back to the ship in silence, allowing me to reflect on my fighting and how badly I sucked.

I got to the ship in a state of utter determination, rage, and euphoric exhaustion. I was feeling like I was going to pass out if I didn't sleep, and was loopy from the effects of the pain and lack of sleep (and probably some booze). I hobbled into my room and went streight to flipping my bed back down off the wall I'd flipped it onto. I flopped down and immediately fell asleep.

**I'm sorry for the short chapter, but I need to get the (hopefully) main part of the story started, so I need approval for my main enemy. I'm planning on making them Slender-man like creatures in shape, and Space Pirate like in behavior. I'll post another Poll on my page for votes. Also, I've still got a bit of time for Kevin to become anthro, so if you really want him to, tell me. Thank you.**


	11. Acceptance

May any entity, evil or benign —who is in any way empowered or entertained by my suffering — be destroyed in the slowest, most painful way possible, and rot forevermore in the deepest pit in Hell.

In other words, I had a hangover.

I groaned and grunted as I tried to get myself out of bed. I swear, that panther and lizard must have put red hot needles into my brain. I finally got myself off my mattress and up on my feet, so I hobbled over to the door. I finally got theodor open and stumbled through, winching as every step sent another jolt of pain to my brain.

By the time I had made it to the kitchen, Fox and Falco were already there, but weren't looking any better than I felt.

"Hey" Fox said miserably.

"Hey" I croaked back.

Krystal came out of the kitchen with bowls of green and purple mush. I really hope its not breakfast, cuz they smelled nasty. She put them down in front of us, and smirked.

"You see Kevin? Next time you should follow MY example, not those twits." she flicked her ears at Fox and Falco.

"I think I will, nex' time," I croaked, "It'll sure be a helluva lot less painful."

Her devilish grin widened and she turned back to the kitchen.

I looked back at the bowls she had laid out, and asked, "So, what're we suppos' t' do with these?"

Falco groaned and Fox just said, "Recover."

As it turned out, they were supposed to help you recover from a hangover, but they worked like smelling salts, but after that, you had to ingest some of it. Needless to say, it was nasty.

The minute afterwords was just as bad as the hangover itself, but after you got the taste to die down to being bearable, you noticed that the headache wasn't as bad, and you could think more clearly. I guess I was just happy that we didn't have to wait it out.

Fox Falco and I were all still in the kitchen, listening to Krystal bustling around in the kitchen. I heard someone walk in behind me and turned to see Slippy walking towards the table. He smiled warmly at me and sat down, looking at the door of the kitchen expectantly.

"Here comes the worst part" I heard Fox mutter under his breath.

Krystal then burst forth carrying the most majestic looking pile of bacon-like objects that I had ever seen. My mouth watered at the smell, which was almost like bacon, and the greasy sizzling and popping was like sweet music to my ears. Having thrown up twice since my last meal, I was starving.

She put the plate down on the table and sat down behind it. She heaped her plate full of the delicious breakfast treat, and heaped another plate, which she handed to Slippy. My hunger took over and I reached for a slice of the greasy and salty slice of heaven. Krystal immediately smacked my hand away from the pile and shook her finger at me like a mother scolding a child, saying,

"No, no, no! If you want the paste to work fully, you can't eat or drink anything except water."

She then promptly dove into the task of shoving all of the bacon she could into her mouth and eating it. She was a demon sent to make my Hell complete, I swear.

Slippy and Krystal were eating their way through the pile of bacon while Falco, Fox, and I watched like starving animals, which, in every case, wasn't far off. They made it about half way down the stack when Falco stood up and left. Fox promptly followed. Knowing there was nothing else I was allowed to do here, I chugged the last of my water and got up to follow.

I jogged down the hallway to catch up, and when I did, I asked,

"So, where we be going?" [yes I meant to say that]

"SHHH!" they both hissed (for lack of a better word) at me. I stopped and put my hands up by my head.

"OK, jeez," I whispered, "now really, where are we going?"

"Were going to get something to eat. Where else?" Falco whispered back.

Well that seemed reasonable enough, so I followed them for another minute before we arrived. We were at the big freezer room, where we had been putting a lot of the food we had bought earlier. We entered cautiously, and closed the door quietly behind me, trying not to get caught, and when it shut, we immediately went to the fruits. We chowed down on these strange yet delicious fruits that were called Laugratines.

They were shaped kind of like pears, only with more curve to them and they were a heck of a lot juicier, with a reddish-purple skin that had a texture like peaches. In short, they were probably one of the most amazing fruits I had ever eaten in my life.

I savored every bite, knowing that if what Krystal had said was true, I was probably going to have my headache the rest of the day. Oh well. These laugratines were worth it.

I grabbed another one out of the barrel they were in, and spoke my mind.

"So, I'm gunna guess, rule one of hangover club is that we don't complain about hangover club, right?"

"Yup," he said, thim reference lost on him, "Also, you've gotta act like you're starving till midday meal." Falco managed to fit between bites of some other fruit.

'I can do that,' I thought, shrugging.

When we left the storage freezer thing, we made sure to bring every speck of evidence with us, taking the cores of the fruits, and sweeping the crumbs of things into our hands. There weren't very many crumbs, cus we ate mainly fruits, but you can't very well eat cores, so we did have a few of those.

We dumped the cores into a bin in Fox's room, hoping they wouldn't be discovered, and headed to the training room. It was deserted, of course, and I was looking foreword to training with these guys, even if one was kind of annoying. I was feeling like a boss, so I picked up the first weapon, a staff of some kind, and twirled it around. Falco looked at me, unimpressed, then, out of nowhere, stuck out his hand, knocking the staff away, then he stepped foreword and pulled out a knife, putting it to my throat.

"Dead." he stated coldly.

"Hey! I wasn't even expecting that!" I said, annoyed.

"Yeah," he countered, "But your enemy isn't going to wait till you find your balls now will they?"

I wanted to do something, but I knew this wasn't going to get me anywhere, so I just pushed my anger back, and let out a deep breath.

"Good decision" Falco said threateningly, walking away.

I looked at Fox, but he just shook his head slightly, making a small swiping motion with one hand, as if to say 'Ignore him'. I nodded and followed Falco to the mat in the middle of the room. He stepped onto the mat, and walked to the center.

"Alright, come at me." He said, surprising me.

I felt my anger explode and I had the urge to charge head first at him, to try to take him down any way I possibly could. I felt the muscles in my calves and legs bunch up, then stopped, remembering another time this had happened. It was with BitchAss when I had ended up with a busted nose.

I looked at him warily, trying to think of another way to come at him, when my thoughts were interrupted by Falco.

"Good. You didn't take the bait. Never do that, cuz you normally end up with something broken." Then he turned to Fox, "You better not have told him anything."

He shook his head, an eyebrow raised at me.

"Ok, now for real, let's see what you got," Falco said, sliding down into a stance facing me.

'Alright, let's do this.' I thought seriously.

I walked cautiously to him, trying to mimic how I would do it with the crystal. I put my hands up to guard my face, and slid in, an inch at a time. I watched his eyes, his hands, his feet, all at the same time, my mind racing, trying to figure out what to do in any situation he would throw at me.

I realized he was waiting as well.

I inched foreword, planning for how he would react if I threw a punch. Once I had my scenario fixated in my head, I lunged foreword and shot my fist out, trying to catch him in the face. He didn't react the way I planned. At all.

I had expected Falco to step aside and catch my arm, or for him to sweep my arm away, then punch at my face or body. That never happened.

Falco leabackup the side, letting my momentum carry me past, then did a downward elbow to my neck, making me drop to the floor like a rock. I laid there for a moment letting my quick defeat sink in. I still sucked.

I signed heavily and got up, not even feeling mad, just depressed. I faced him again, keeping my face blank. He was still in the loose stance he was before, just watching. I knew I wasn't going to beat him, so I halfheartedly attacked him, and, again, getting beaten.

Around the sixth round of Fox cheering me on, even though he had been watching me fail. I was starting to get frustrated. I mean, yes, I knew Falco was going to beat me, and yes, they both knew it too by now, so why not instruct me? Why not teach me what's was doing wrong so I could get better? I had been pushing the frustration and anger down, but it was building.

I lunged at Falco again, putting a little more effort into the attack. He countered me yet again, with little effort, putting me face first onto the ground again. Something snapped.

I sprung up from the ground, my teeth bared like an animal. I was breathing hard and crouched into a tense fighting position, glaring at my tormentor. I looked at his stance, not caring to analyze what he would do anymore. I just wanted to hurt him.

I flung myself at him, my fists flying and feet kicking. I was a whirlwind of motion and emotion. I would throw something and Falco would counter, but for some reason he couldn't hit me. Somehow I would get my arm up just in time, or I would twitch out of the way right before he hit me.

I honestly don't see who was more surprised, me or Falco. Our skirmish went on, us exchanging blows, but never hitting each other. I felt giddy as I realized I was holding my ground. I could do this! I started watching Falco, looking for any opening he would present, but that's when he got me.

He had used a side kick. The same thing he had used on me five or six times during our little fight, but for some reason, I just couldn't get out of the way. He hit me square in the chest, sending me flying a good two or three feet away. I landed on my back, getting the breath knocked out of me.

I regained my breath quickly enough, and Fox walked over to me, his hand extended to help me up. I lay there looking at it, not thinking at all, just staring blankly. After a time he dropped his hand and crouched beside me.

"Look, you're doing better. Thats all that counts. He means well, even if it doesn't seem like it," he said, motioning to Falco.

I stared at him mutely, still not thinking. It was better that way. No thoughts, no troubles, no disappointment.

Fox sighed and stood up, his ears back slightly. I looked at Falco, who was standing across the room, his arms crossed, looking bored.

I sighed to myself and slowly sat up. I glared at Falco and pushed myself to my feet. Falco raised some of his fingers from his arm, and rolled his eyes. I felt my anger start building again. But this time It wasn't going to control me.

I walked to Falco again, but before he slid into his stance, I put my hand straight out, trying to look epic.

"If we are to do this, we do this my way." I said, trying to sound ominous.

Falco smirked and narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Alright, so what's 'your' way?" He asked sarcastically.

I never answered, but turned and walked to the door. I had noticed them the other day when I was leaving, but now was the time to use them.

I grabbed the two mildly heavy and curved objects and walked them to the center. Once there, I presented one to Falco, watching the disbelief on his face. He took it gingerly, holding it more like he would a toy than a weapon.

"What the hell is this?" he asked in disgust.

I raised an eyebrow and laughed quietly at him.

"So you've never seen one before? This is a beautiful device used by skilled artisan warriors in a deadly dance of which one wrong move could easily have you killed," I spouted out as I made it up off the top of my head, "Its deadly grace is only matched by the proper handling of another tool of the likes. It is the perfect balance of accuracy and brute force, grace and wit, talent and practice, or for your stolid mind, this work of art is simply called the sword."

I gave a small bow at the end of my monologue, leaving Falco with his mouth open, and a dumb expression on his face. Fox didn't look much better,

I moved to the center of the sparring mat, and held my sword up. It was curved like a scimitar but had a deadly hook back out at the end, making it one of the most exotic weapons I had ever used. I looked at Fox, but he was looking back with the strangest expression. It was a mix between awe, confusion, and kind of a 'what the hell are you doing' look.

Falco suddenly burst out laughing, startling me.

"You've gotta be joking right? This is what we use to sharpen the practice spears and spikes that hold in the targets! This is like fighting with spoons! Theres no way two IDIOTS would fight with these! You'd kill yourself before your enemy even got close!" he went on laughing for a while.

"You know what?" he continued, "I'll do it. I'll just sit back and watch as you cut yoself up." he walked to the middle of the ring, a wide grin on his face, shaking his head in disbelief. I looked over at Fox for support, but he looked confused and worried.

I shrugged and raised the sharpener up again. My interest in the dark ages was about to pay off. As a kid, I had always been interested in anything to do with them, especially the armor and weaponry. I had a sword for a while, and I had gotten pretty good at using it when I had it. I had also gotten pretty good at the other weapons of the time, like the javelin and the long bow.

Needless to say, I felt more than confident I could beat Falco.

I raised the sword, noting that it wasn't very well balanced, but it was lighter than I was used to using, so it shouldn't be a problem. Falco smirked and swing his sword at me, just basically throwing the blade in my general direction. I raised my arm and sucked in my stomach, arching back slightly, letting the blade smoothly glide past me, then I dropped the blade to Falco's throat.

"Dead." I said, mimicking how Falco had said it earlier.

Falco narrowed his eyes and we stepped apart, assuming fighting positions again.

Falco slashed at me again, more intent on hitting me this time, but I sidestepped his blade and jumped behind him, putting my blade to his throat.

"Dead." I said again.

I let Falco loose and he jumped away, assuming a threatening stance with the sword awkwardly clutched in his hand.

Falco was glaring at me, and suddenly lunged at me, slashing his sword through the air. I easily leaned diagonally, letting his sword arch down parallel to my body. I chuckled softly, and Falco heard as he stumbled past, and lunged again, slashing madly. I dodged every one of his attacks, never even touching his blade with my own.

I started taunting him, just to rub it in a little.

"What, that the best you can do? Why don't I try fighting a wall. It'll have a better chance of hitting me."

Falco roared and lunged again, swinging his sword straight down at me. I blocked his blade with my own, reveling in the beautifully loud sound of metal striking metal. I stepped foreword, holding his blade up with mine, and head butted him on the forehead, being careful not to hit his beak.

Falco stumbled back, crying out in pain.

"Hey! Not fair! We're only supposed to use our Lincras!"

Ah, so that's what they're called.

"Oh well," I said, shrugging, "Life isn't fair, it's about what you can do, and what you can't do."

Cold, I know, but this is the message he'd been sending me earlier, so whatever.

"What's all the noise?" I heard. I turned and saw that Krystal had walked in, Her ears perked up and a curious look on her face. I heard a shuffling behind me, then Krystal scream. I whipped around and parred Falco's desperate stab to my back, twisting my blade around his in the process, and yanking as the hooked end of mine caught the middle of his blade.

His blade flew streight up, leaving Falco with a dazed look in his eyes, and even a look of... Fear?

I spun my Lincras vertically on either side of him, cutting off feathers from his cheeks, up again, then down towards his head with terrifying speed. Falco dipped his head and dropped to his knees, knowing he would die. Krystal screamed again, and the blade sped closer and closer to his head. Faster, faster, the split air hissing, then...

Stop.

Half an inch from Falco's skull, the hook on the end of the blade following the curve of his cranium, I stopped the blade dead, then pulled it up again,

"Dead." I said.

Falco peeked out one eye, looking amazed to be alive, and I tossed my sword aside. The whole room seemed to let out a deep breath. I looked down at him, and he looked solemnly back at me. We stood there a moment. The whole world frozen, then I smiled, and extended my hand. Falco looked at it, then back at me.

"You should take it," I said encouragingly, "like, right now."

Falco gingerly grabbed my hand, and I yanked the hell out of his arm. Just in time.

The blade of Falco's sword embedded itself an inch into the metal floor, where Falco had been just a moment before. The room was silent as Falco's cheek feathers landed on either side of the blade sticking out of the floor.

"Jeez! You make me feel like I'm playing roulette!" I said sarcastically to Falco, trying to break the tension.

Falco looked at me a moment, then his face broke into a smile. He nodded at me, and I nodded back, knowing that I had just gained his respect. I felt relieved. I was finally part of the team. I turned to Fox and grinned and he grinned back.

But not because of the same thing. Krystal, who was walking towards us, had her tail in the air stiffly, broadcasting her discontent, and also something else. Her tailfur was sticking streight up, making her tail look poofy and almost comical. I almost started cracking up with Fox, both of us trying to keep a streight face.

I was just about to my bursting point with contained laughter, when, WHAM! Krystal slapped me across the face.

"Don't DO that!" she cried indignantly.

My face stung slightly as she spun around and walked out of the room stiffly, her tailfur still standing on end.

As soon as she was gone, Fox, Falco and I busted up like the group of teenage guys we were.

"Oh shit! Did you see her tail? It was like BZZT!" Falco said while making an exploding motion with his wings.

Fox and I were laughing up too hard to speak. We calmed down for a second, then Fox's composure cracked, sending us all into another fit of laughter. By the time we finished laughing once and for all, we were all on the ground, clutching our stomachs in pain.

I stood painfully, clutching my aching midriff with one arm. Fox and Falco weren't faring much better. We stood there in the middle of the training arena for a few moments, letting our abs and laughing muscles recover, then Falco broke the silence, saying, "Alright guys, I think it's time for some food. How 'bout you?"

At the suggestion, my stomach growled louder than a bear, voicing its want for something to grind. Fox's face split into a grin at my body's discreetness, or lack thereof. I scowled at him, and the three of us headed to the door.

Needless to say, we were navigating the carpeted hallways of the Great Fox to find the kitchen. I followed Falco, who was walking with a brash confidence that I would never have thought possible for one who had just nearly lost his head.

I was lost deep in thought, only surfacing my mind to make sure I was actually following Fox and Falco. They were a few steps ahead of me, talking to each other. I of course didn't hear any of this, only paying any mind to where I was going and my thoughts. I was baffled at the lack of skill in actual weapons, but this didn't worry me. In fact, if anything, it encouraged me. If nobody knew how to fight with swords or any of the like, I had an advantage.

I let myself loose with my thoughts, walking as if in a trance, not blinking, looking around, or listening. It was as relaxing as its always been.

Shortly after, I was rudely jolted out of my peaceful trance by Falco snickering. My eyes focused and darted around wildly, realizing I was sitting at the food-room table, back streight, no expression, and my arms dangling at my sides. Falco and Fox were sitting a few seats down, trying not to laugh at me.

I rolled my eyes and stood up, walking through the wooden door to the kitchen, the hinges squeaking slightly. This got my mind thinking. I hadn't thought of it up till now, but if they had plasma guns, and space ships that were affordable, why not automatic sliding doors or something? I opened my mouth to ask Fox, then thought better of it, closing my mouth with a sharp clack.

I continued past the counters and stoves– which were the same concept of the ones back on earth– and streight to the metal door in the back. I undid the small locking mechanism on the side of the door, and pulled it open. It was thick, so it was heavier than the other doors, but when I got it open, I was free to explore my destination. The freezer.

I was looking for anything that could possibly be earth related to cook. My eyes took in the sight of shelves and shelves of exotic fruits, nuts, berries, preserved animal meats, and other sacs of food items. My eyes stopped on a small shelf full of large– huge compared to what I was used to– white, slightly oval-like items.

Apparently eggs are universal. Literally.

I picked up one of the softball sized eggs and looked at it, impressed. It was a good two or three pounds, and, I assumed, a harder shell than an earth egg. It also wasn't white, as I'd first thought. It was a creamy yellowish color, like the clouds at sunrise.

I suddenly felt a wave of homesickness wash over me, making my stomach churn. I was thousands of miles — no, LIGHTYEARS away from my planet, let alone my house or any of my friends. The mere thought made me feel small and insignificant. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to be back at my crummy apartment, munching on Doritos while watching some stupid TV show, laughing along with my mom.

No. I had to stop thinking of home! If I couldn't stand being away from things at earth, I'd just bring things from earth here. The egg in hand, I straightened and strode confidently into the kitchen and leaned out the door to the Food-Room, calling Fox up from his heated debate with Falco,

"Hey, Fox! Do you all have milk here? Or pepper? Or cheese? Or pans and stuff?"

Fox looked back at me, shrugging.

"Well, we got the pans, but what the hell is pepper? Or milk? Or cheese?" he said, elongating the new words to try and get used to them.

I thought for a moment, leaning against the door frame, before replying.

"Pepper is kind of a spicy herb that makes stuff feel hot, I guess. Milk makes up cheese and milk is... Well, milk is... Hmm... I'm not quite sure how to put this." I said, trying to think of a non-embarrassing way to put it.

I stood there a moment, biting my lip. Fox and Falco were still looking at me, waiting for my answer.

"Maybe... Lactose?" I ventured, trying to think of a word they would understand, "Um... The calcium and fat rich liquid that is creamy in color? No? *sigh* Alright. It's makes up breasts and is fed to infants from the mothers to help make them grow."

Falco looked at me a moment, then cracked up, cackling wildly while pounding the table. Fox chuckled at this too, but nodded, and rolled his eyes at Falco.

"Yeah," he said, "We've got 'milk' and 'cheese' but I'm not sure about this 'pepper'. Come on," he said, getting up from the table and walking into the kitchen.

I fell on line behind Fox, cursing myself in my head for making a fool of myself. Fox walked into the freezer and walked to a humongous block wrapped in some kind of plastic wrap, and opened open the top.

I whistled loudly. That was a lot of cheese. The block must have been a good three feet wide by three feet deep by four feet tall.

Whilst I was admiring the cheese, Fox had walked across the freezer to a large spigot in the wall. He pulled the lever above it down, making the white liquid flow into a cup he was holding under it.

"Is this it?" he asked, offering the cup to me.

"Yup." I said, taking the cup.

We walked out of the coolness of the freezer and back into the kitchen. Fox, who was walking behind me, closed the door, and moved in front of me, taking me to a big range-like contraption.

**[AN: for those of you who don't know, a range is an old stove, used a long time ago.]**

The only difference this had is it was smaller and had dials instead of a door to put in logs. I guess it was kind of a mix between a grill and a stove.

He pulled open a drawer below the thing, pulling out a pan, almost just like the ones on earth. He put it on top of the Grill-stove and moved out of my way, motioning for me to begin.

I looked at the egg and the milk in my hands, then I realized I was missing the bowl.

"Eh, I need a bowl." I said, not able to think of a less demanding way to put it.

"Alright," Fox said, shrugging. He reached to my left and opened a cabinet, then reached up and pulled out a bowl. He handed it to me, and looked questioningly at the egg in my hand.

"So... What is that for?"

I looked at him, confused.

"What? The egg? I'm gonna cook it." I said incredulously, "Why? Am I not supposed to?"

"Well, I've never heard of somebody cooking one," he said.

"Hmm... Oh well," I shrugged, "Your loss."

I put the bowl on the counter and smacked the egg on the edge, cracking it open, revealing the gooey egg-mess, just like the eggs from earth, only a lot more of it. I put the egg over the bowl and put my thumbs inside the crack, and pulled apart, looking like the little professional I was at cooking the only thing I knew how to. Eggs.

I glanced at Fox and smirked, then I looked down at the goop in the bowl... And froze.

It was Purple.

I regained from my split second hesitation well. I smoothly went back into action, acting unfazed. I opened the drawer below me, and found something to stir it up with. I think it was some kind of small fork spatula thing, but whatever. I stuck it into the bowl and started beating like I always did.

Fox was looking at me with a curious expression, and moved closer. He and I both wached as the purple egg became a solid purple color throughout, acting very egg-like. So it must just be the color. Oh well. I stopped beating and walked into the freezer.

I walked to the big-ass cheese block and grabbed a chunk from a corner, then turned and walked back out the door, shutting it behind me.

I went back to my range and put the hunk of cheese down by my bowl of egg. I grabbed the glass of milk I had put down earlier and dumped about half the content in the bowl. I chugged most of the rest. It was slightly stronger than I was used to, but it was still milk.

I mixed the milk and egg together for a second, making a lighter purple color, which was still an interesting color. I wiped my hands on my jeans and turned to Fox.

"So... How do I turn this puppy on?"

"Puppy? What puppy?" he asked confused.

I frowned remembering I was with aliens.

"How do I turn it on?" I asked wearily, motioning to the range.

"Oh, that's easy, you..." he went on to explain some short process, and a flame sprung to life under the grille of the range.

"Thanks!" I said, grinning.

I stuck the pan on the hot stove and let it sit for a moment. During this time, I realized they didn't have any cooking grease, so I racked my brains for anything that I could use. I glanced at the pan, which seemed almost sufficiently heated. On impulse, I grabbed the remainder of the milk and poured it into the pan, making it steam.

I reached down and turned the knob down, lowering the heat of the range. Even aliens had that same concept. Fox was just looking at me like I was crazy now.

"What?" I said, looking at him as I grabbed the bowl of egg and dumped it into the pan. It sizzled and popped, just like the eggs back home, and even gave off nearly the same aroma. I looked down at the only flipping tool I had. A fork-spatula. Great.

I reached back into the drawer and grabbed another one, hopefully to help me pick up the eggs. By now they were cooked about half through, leaving a very small amount of still liquid on top. I stuck my flippers under and slid the egg back at an angle, dumping the liquid in the pan first, allowing it to cook better. I then flipped the egg the rest of the way over, hearing the sizzle as the two parts re-bonded.

I put the spatulas down and grabbed my handful of cheese, crumbling it over the cooked side of the egg. It started melting as soon as it touched the heated purple substance. When I finished crumbling the cheese, I grabbed the mini spatulas and picked up one edge, and seeing that it was cooked on the other side, I picked the rest of that side up and folded it onto the other half, then scooped it up, and put it onto the plate I had brought in earlier.

I then turned off the stove and walked past Fox, who was staring at me in astonishment. There wasn't even anything left in the pan. I walked out of the kitchen, holding my plate like a waiter, and spun it down in front of my seat, then sat, getting ready to chow down.

"That looks HORRIBLE!" Falco exclaimed, a disgusted look on his face.

"Well, I can't say you look much better, but you think you're so great." I countered smoothly.

Fox chuckled from the kitchen door and Falco sat there glaring at me.

I tore off a corner of my strange looking omelet, and took a bite. It didn't even need season salt! The egg must have been naturally salted!

I pulled off another piece and was about to stick it into my mouth when I heard another voice at the door.

"That smells GOOD! Who cooked it?" Krystal walked in, her eyes closed and her nose in the air.

"Um... I cooked it." I said, knowing she didn't really like me.

"Oh," she said, her head coming down and her eyes opening, "On second thought, I already ate this morning."

"You know," I said, annoyed, "this is the only thing I have ever learned to cook in my entire life, and over the course of my life, I've gotten pretty damn good at cooking it, so it's your loss if you don't want any."

Ok, it wasn't exactly classy, but I was tired of her treating me like a bug.

She looked at me in shock, making me start to regret being that mean. Even Fox was looking at me in anger. I almost apologized when Krystal's face broke out into a big grin.

"You're capable of standing up for yourself. Good," she smiled and walked to sit next to me.

"Ok," I said, mildly confused, splitting my omelette in half and giving the uneaten half to her. She took it up gingerly, her soft furred fingers brushing mine, and she took a small bite. Her eyes widened and her ears shot streight forward. She looked over at me with her wide eyes and looked back down at the purple object in her hands.

"Hah!" Falco exclaimed, "Told you it looked bad!"

She then took no time to shove most of it into her mouth and start chewing like crazy.

Falco glared at her while Fox and I laughed. I broke half off my half and handed it to Fox, who put it in his mouth and started chewing. His eyebrows raised and he looked at me, nodding in approval.

I grinned and put the rest of my omelette in my mouth, leaving Falco grumbling halfheartedly about being left out.

I was finally accepted to the team. By all the members.

Life would be good!

**Finished. **

**I kind of feel guilty that I haven't spent more time on this story, cuz I meant to get like, two or three chapters done over spring break, but that didn't happen. So here's what I did get done.**


	12. Burning Planet

I woke up in my room, feeling more rested than I had in weeks. I vaguely remembered the night before, which had, to my knowledge, been filled with harmless banter and joking around between me Falco and Fox. I was in my room, sitting on the edge of my bed, trying to find the courage to disturb my inner calm by getting up and starting my day.

I put my feet off the edge of the mattress and stood, trying not to think too deeply about anything. The strain I'm my muscles threw off my peace slightly, but not completely. I glided smoothly to the door, still not thinking or showing any emotion. I loved this feeling, because it was the only time I never worried about anything. Everything important is pushed out of my mind, and anything unimportant is noticed with new beauty and meaning.

I realized with disappointment that to open the door, I had to raise my hand, which I knew would break the feeling. With this thought, the delicate pane of peace and calm shattered, leaving me feeling energized and almost bouncing with enthusiasm. I shrugged, and grabbed the doorknob, twisting it to open the door.

The whole ship seemed brighter as I walked through its halls this time. I made my way through these halls to check and see if breakfast was ready. As I entered the kitchen, I noticed it was as empty as my bladder was begging to be. With this revelation, I jogged down the hallways and left the ship, heading into the woods the same way we had a few days ago. When I had gotten a sufficient distance from the ship, I unzipped my pants, and answered the call of nature.

A good fifteen to twenty seconds, later, I was pulling my pants back up, zipping my jeans, and turning to head back to the ship. I was walking back, taking the time to look around and admire the beauty of the woods. It was amazingly quiet, considering I was walking through the woods, and it felt like there should have been at least a few animals about, chirping or making other various noises.

The air seemed to stiffen around me, and then i heard it. A sharp shushing noise, like someone was walking thought the woods, trying to go unnoticed. I immediately dropped into a low crouch and tried to detect what direction the sound was coming from. I strained my ears, trying to make out any noise, but the only thing I heard was the pounding in my ears from my blood.

I was about to give up, thinking maybe I had imagined it, when I heard it again, only closer. Now that I knew it was coming from my right, I listened as I slowly and quietly moved to get behind one of the huge trees. I could make out a faint whispering, which sounded almost like it was in hysterics. I realized, though, that it was just like a crazy hysteric. Not a scared hysteric.

At this point, I was curious. Who would be wandering the woods at this time in the morning? The only reasonable explanation I could come up with was that maybe they were lost and going crazy.

The noises were moving closer, only a few hundred feet away now. I took a step out from behind the tree and prepared to announce my presence, as not to startle the people. As I took the revealing step, one of the few branches on the floor of the woods snapped under my feet. I immediately froze and cursed my luck. Of course I step on the only thing that would startle the strangers when trying to do the opposite!

I looked up and realized that, while I had been overwhelmed by my noise, the shushing figure had shushed again, masking my noise perfectly. I quickly glanced around, trying to pinpoint where the people were and froze again. These people weren't lost, they were sneaking!

These were the two bastards that had beat the shit out of me at the bar!

I quickly backed up to hide behind the tree again, hoping they hadn't see me. I pressed up against the tree and listened.

"Shush! I told you, we need to be quiet!" shushed the panther, who was dressed in an all black catsuit (ironically). The lizard, who had on a regular black jumpsuit, was giggling and grinning like a maniac.

"Hee hee! I can't wait to see the look on their faces when we get in and out without them even knowing!" the lizard chortled quietly.

"Shut up!" the panther whispered forcefully, "The only way we'll make it in is if we don't make any noise! If you can't stop yourself, then I guess Panther will have to do it for you."

The lizard shut up.

I was kind of curious as to who this panther was, though. This panther was speaking highly of them, but it was confusing, because he was talking about someone supposedly not there as if he or she was... Oh well.

I waited as they moved closer, and quietly shuffled around the tree so they couldn't see me as they walked past. They went on in silence. Apparently this panther was feared enough to keep the crazy lizard silent, and the other panther as a loyal tattle-tale. I figured that they were both just underlings sent to do someone else's dirty work, though.

I stood still behind the tree, making as little noise as possible until the only noise I could hear was the sound of my heart beating and my breath rasping through my nose. I peeked out from behind my tree to see if the panther and crazy lizard were gone, and didn't see anything.

I pushed off the tree and took off at an angle to the ship. I wanted to get there before the two wackos, so I was sprinting. I was off like a shot. I needed to get to the ship around the two, but not be seen, so I was going to use their sneaking to my advantage.

I felt the adrenaline rush as my blood sped up through my body. Why didn't I run every day? It felt good enough.

I pumped my legs like a demon from a holy man, quickly making my way back to the ship. I'm just glad I decided to take a piss so far away, otherwise the creeps would have gone unnoticed.

I sprinted for what seemed like an eternity, hopefully giving myself enough time to warn the team about the two wanna-be sneaks. I cleared the woods a good two-hundred to three-hundred yards away from the ship, and sprinted my way towards it. I reached the entrance ramp huffing and puffing more than the Big Bad Wolf, and muscles weaker than Jell-O. Now I remember why I don't run that often.

'Or maybe that's a reason TO run more often.' I thought to myself.

I shrugged and shuffled into the ship, leg muscles exhausted. There was either going to be someone close by that I could call, or I would have to keep jogging to the rooms and get them. I decided to try to keep jogging. If those two creeps wanted something from the ship, Fox would want to know what.

Fox McCloud was awoken from the calm and peaceful embrace of sleep rudely by the clanging sound of a fist on the door.

"Damn it," he cursed lightly to himself.

He pushed the covers off himself and sat up, putting his feet on the floor. He sat there a moment, staring at the floor sleepily.

Ever since the end of the Aparoid Invasion, he had been having trouble motivating himself to get up every morning, and it was only getting worse. Simply put, his life was dull, with no reason to live it. He woke up every morning and did the same thing. He ate, worked out, and trained. There was the occasional mission that he and the team would undertake, but these were always only one or two day things to break the [month] long waits.

The only reason he and Falco had started drinking was because there was nothing better to do.

There was another loud bang from the door, startling Fox. He had completely forgotten there was someone there.

"Coming," he called, forcing himself to get up and walk to the door.

He opened the door and found Kevin panting outside his door.

"What is it," Fox sighed heavily.

"Two... Two people. Trying to get... To get into the ship." Kevin panted heavily.

Fox's ears immediately perked up. Two people getting into the ship, breaking in, and were important enough that Kevin had deemed it necessary to Come report it? Interesting.

"What did they look like?" Fox asked, instantly awake.

"One was a lizard thing... And the other was a black... A black panther." Kevin said, a bit more quickly now that he was catching his breath.

"Damn it," Fox muttered, "Panther and Leon,"

"Who?" Kevin asked.

"They're members of Star Wolf, our rival team. They're probably here to sabotage the ship, or take something important." Fox said darkly.

"Alright then, let's go stop them," Kevin sighed wearily, preparing himself mentally for another run.

Fox and I arrived at the hanger very quickly. Fox was panting, but not as hard as I was.

I was bent over panting like a dog, my hands on my knees to hold me up. Fox was looking out around the corner, trying to spot the two intruders. We stood there like that a moment, the only sound was my breathing.

After I more-or-less caught my breath, Fox spotted them.

"There," he said, sweeping his hand out behind him to push me up against the wall.

I peeked over his shoulder, scanning the room. THERE. I spotted the two black clad figures slinking across the room to the ships. We I started moving forward, in attempt to stop them, but Fox held out his arm, stopping me.

"Let's just see what they do," he whispered quietly.

I leaned back against the wall, my head still turned to look at the intruders. They seemed to be messing with the inner workings of the ships, as if... Well, of course to sabotage.

We watched them pull out one or two parts from each ship, and for one in particular, replace a few parts.

"Damn," Fox muttered, "They're screwing with my ship. This must mean that Wolf is planning a race or battle or something."

"Who is Wolf?" I asked quietly.

"He's the leader of their team, Star Wolf. He's always trying to prove he's better than me at flying, even though I beat him every time." Fox whispered to me.

Alright, so they were henchmen. I was right. Kudos to me.

We watched and waited as the two black clad sneak-wannabes slunk out of the room, Leon giggling to himself quietly as Panther shushed him.

We waited a good five minutes after they left before we started talking.

"Alright, so they work for Wolf, who has some kind of inferiority complex, and wants to prove himself better than you, which he's not, so he's going to challenge you with a ship battle with ships that he's altered, and he thinks this is going to make him better than you?" I babbled tiredly, wanting to know if I was right.

"Hmm... Yup, that sounds about right," Fox said, turning back and walking back down the hallway.

"Wait. Where are you going? Aren't we going to fix the ships?" I asked, confused.

"Well, yeah," he said over his shoulder, "But I've got no idea how to do it. We gotta get Slippy."

Oh.

We arrived back at the hanger after retrieving Slippy from his room. He seemed kind of mellow about the whole thing, but when he got to the ships, he talked non-stop throughout the inspection. I don't even know what he was talking about most of the time, just tried to block out his high annoying voice. In the end, he finally deemed we needed a few more parts, of course, and he took out the extra part from, what I had learned, was Fox's ship. He wanted to inspect it to find out it was and what it did.

The whole process only took half an hour (by my reckoning. It's not like there was a clock). I was impressed, cuz even auto shops on earth, with their simple machines compared to this, couldn't ever find a problem, replace the parts, and inspect a faulty part in less than a day.

I watched Slippy test out to see if the ship would start right, sending Fox in and telling him to start it. The engine purred to life in a flash, then stayed on with a blue glow. I was curious, so I reached out to touch the engine (I assumed) which held the blue glow inside a clear window.

The window of course was smooth, since it was, or was like, glass, but it wasn't hot, or even warm. In fact, it didn't even seem to have a hot or coldness, just a kind of pinch when I touched it. Slippy saw my interest and smiled at me.

"Thats the engine," he said to me, "It's run off a plasma substance that gathers and stores energy from surrounding heat and life sources."

'Thats pretty cool,' I thought.

Slippy went over and got into a long discussion with Fox about how the ships got broken, what they took, and what it would have done to the ships performance and functions. During this time, I had no interest invested whatsoever, so my mind was wandering the deepest recesses of space, time, and matter.

Mostly matter though.

That engine concept interested me. The plasma gathering and storing energy for later use could be used for a hell of a lot of things. I was already coming up with gun designs and probably other impossible things to use it for, so I was busy. There was one idea that I could tell was ingenious, but was just out of my mental grasp. It was like that word you know, and have used, and it's on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't think of what it is.

I was interrupted from my deep pondering by a hand on my shoulder as Slippy tried to get my attention.

"Hey," he said to me as my eyes focused, "Were going for breakfast. Wanna come along?"

My stomach rumbled as it realized it had been cheated of food all morning so far.

"Sure," I said, looking around and realizing that Fox had already started to the kitchen. Slippy and I jogged to catch up.

We were in the control room after eating, on the call of General Peppy. He was a large rabbit, large meaning kinda chubby, and he had on a legit pair of glasses. Maybe humans weren't that far behind in visual technologies.

"Alright," he said to the group, his eyes lingering on me a moment through the monitor.

"There have been reports of attacks on civilized planets in the Gulake quadrant, on the Luther fringes of the known galaxy. They appear to be synchronized and intelligent attacks, and seem to be advancing from the depths of unknown space."

"I want you and your team to investigate these attacks," he said, looking at Fox, "I am sending the coordinates of the planets now."

There was a high pitched beep and Falco we to over and pressed something, causing a file, or whatever they call it, to pop up on the screen.

"We have it," Falco said affirmatively.

"Good," Peppy said, "Report to me your findings. Good luck, Star Fox."

"Thank you, Commander," Fox said, saluting.

The screen went blank, and the team, except me and Krystal, went to work. Fox went to some kind of control unit, Falco and Slippy both went to computers. The ship hummed momentarily, then went quiet.

"That was it turing on, right?" I asked nervously. I hadn't thought about if Panther and Leon had gotten to this ships engine.

"Yup," Falco confirmed.

I felt slight relief. No engine trouble. Good.

I waited a moment, only hearing the soft click of buttons being pushed and joy sticks being maneuvered. The silence started getting awkward, so I glanced over at Krystal, trying to get her attention without noise. She didn't notice me. She was staring at something, so I followed her gaze.

I saw Fox.

It suddenly clicked in my head. She liked him. And now that I think about it, he likes her.

The way he would get a dreamy expression when I would talk about the team on earth, but never mentioned Krystal. He didn't want anybody to know he liked her. Seeing as they aren't dating or a couple, he probably doesn't know she likes him.

That's interesting.

But not useful to me in any way.

I shrugged and walked out of the room, heading down the hallways to my room. I entered, and saw something beautiful. There was something shining in my eye! I basically jumped to the shiny object, not even caring to put my feet on the ground. I fell streight to my knees and grabbed the object.

It was my crystal! I had finally found it! I picked it up and kissed it.

I was back in business!

I put it around my neck and tucked it under my shirt, feeling happier than I had since being on this planet. I more or less floated over to my pack and finally bothered unpacking.

I pulled out a couple'a pairs of clothes and carried them over to one of the scattered boxes. I flipped it over and put my clothes on it, and started making furniture of the surrounding boxes. I grabbed one and flipped it over and covered the puke-spot near the wall, planning on using it as a table-night stand thing. I grabbed three more boxes and stacked them on the other side of the room beside each other, planning on using them as a place to out my clothes.

I grabbed my clothes and sorted them on the boxes. One pile shirts, the other pants, then socks and underwear. I had also grabbed my full-body Under Armor, and some knives, so I set those aside.

I grabbed a couple of necessary items for the mission, like my knives, and put on a new set of clothes, including my under armor underneath. I tucked a couple of knives in various places, like my sock, pocket, and the back waistline of my pants. It was kinda dumb, but whatever. Better some knives to fight with than nothing.

I left my room and went back to the control room. Slippy was tinkering with something, and Fox and Falco were playing some kind of game. Krystal was nowhere to be seen.

I went over to Fox and Falco and watched what they were doing. It looked like a game kind of like rock-paper-scissors. They did the three taps before showing, then made hand gestures to see who won. It looked like they had gun, wall, and rock. Whatever.

"So... How do you play?" I asked.

"Ok, so you have a mirror, a laser, and a rock. The mirror beats laser, the laser beats rock, and the rock beats mirror." Fox said.

Makes sense.

"Could I play?" I asked.

"Sure. Why not?" said Falco.

"Cool," I muttered.

We played a few rounds when Fox got up.

"We should be arriving soon," he said as he stood.

Falco got up too, and walked towards his monitor.

I just stayed sitting on the floor, watching patiently. I realized that there was a slight pinching on my chest, and it itched like crazy. I scratched, but that only worked for a little while before it came back. I looked down my shirt, but there was no rash or redness. I gave up scratching, thinking maybe I was developing some kind of allergy to something in space, or something.

"We are now leaving Faarlite," Falco said to Fox.

I watched Fox and Falco pushing buttons and flipping switches and stuff, but it wasn't all that interesting. I was starting to scratch at a spot on my jeans when I felt the ship shudder slightly.

"Umm... We seem to be taking fire," Slippy said, looking at his screen, "The rear shield is at 98 percent."

Well crap on a cracker.

The monitor started to freak out, then the face of a wolf appeared. He had grey and white fur, and as far as I could tell, looked kinda punkey. He smirked at us contemptuously.

"So you're here to investigate these attacks too? Well I'm sorry Fox, but I just can't let you do that." he growled at us.

"Oh please, Wolf," Falco said dismissively, "We could beat you in a ship fight anywhere, any day."

"Oh really now? Well then, if you aren't too scared to come out and play, then let's settle this once and for all, Fox." he said smirking at us again.

Fox sighed and turned off the monitor.

"Damnit," he said, "Well. It looks like we're going to be taking the Arwings to the surface."

Cool! I'm gunna fly!

Fox led us to the hanger, where Krystal was, messing with something in the back of one of the ships.

"Alright, everyone, grab an Arwing and let's go." he hopped up onto one of the ships and sat inside it, pulling the windshield down.

Falco Slippy and Krystal all did the same, leaving one Arwing left. I walked over and clambered in, pulling the windshield closed. It hissed as the ship sealed itself, and I looked at the control panel. Or joy sticks and six buttons. It looked really easy to work.

I heard the other ships hum to life beside me, and looked for the power button. I pressed the big red one on my right. The ship flickered to life. The screen that was in the dashboard thing turned on and showed Fox, Falco, Slippy and Krystal, all in different corners.

They were all wearing little headsets and talking to each other, obviously some kind of launching procedure. Fox went through the team, asking them if they could hear, and other simple things. When he got to me, he asked if I could hear, and waited for my response.

"Yup," I said affirmingly.

"You're going to need to put in your headset if you want to talk to us," Fox said, sighing.

I looked at the dashboard and saw the headset, and put it on.

"Yup, I can hear," I said.

"Good, then let's get going,"

Fox had told me how to operate the Arwing over the monitor, and I'll have to admit, aliens are smart. Their controls are really freaking easy to use.

We had left the Great Fox, and we were currently scanning the skies for the Star Wolf team. There was not a trace.

"Huh," Falco puffed, "That's not much like Wolf. To drop a challenge and just leave it."

"Yeah," Fox muttered, "That's what worries me. That he didn't leave."

"So, lemme get this straight," I said, "He normally follows up on his challenges, and he doesn't appear to be here, so... Ambush?"

I saw a laser flash past my Arwing's windshield. Yup. Ambush.

"Alright! Everyone, scatter!" Fox called, "We'll all split up and outmaneuver them till we've got the advantage!"

Everyone immediately split up. I curled up and right, doing a flip, then realized there was nobody on my tail. That meant... Yup, only four members on the Star Wolf team.

I sat back and watched as the team spun and twirled around everything the Star Wolf team threw at them. It all seemed so random though... They all seemed to be doing their own thing. I watched tensely. At any moment, one of the team could be shot down.

Pfft! Who am I kidding? The Star Fox team getting shot down? Right.

I relaxed and enjoyed the show. I still didn't see any correlation in their actions though. Well, not until the Star Wolf team ended up in a circle, back to back with one of our guns pointed at them.

That was freaking awesome.

"Alright, Fox..." I heard Wolf's voice crackle over the system, "You win... This time."

The Star Wolf team simultaneously flew off towards the planet below us.

"Alright guys, good job," Fox said, "Now let's get down there and figure this out.

We flew off towards the planet.

This planet was nothing like the one I had first seen. The one we had gone on to restock was green and had lush forests and full of other people and animals. This one was very different. And I'm guessing it wasn't natural.

The land was a barren, charred wasteland. There were a few odd lumps on the ground, but it was mostly just charred dirt and ash. It was as if the whole planet had been burned.

We flew overhead for a few minutes, just scanning the surface for any life. There was nothing to find. It seemed that everything had been killed.

"Well this is a downer," I said after the eternity of awed silence.

Only Fox responded.

"Well, the only thing that's clear is that these invaders are very powerful, and are not afraid to slaughter hundreds of innocents to get what they want. The only problem is finding them."

Falco nodded solemnly in agreement, whilst the rest of us just gazed over the charred horizon. A few more Arwings flew in line beside us. A few more spots appeared in our screens.

"What kind of monsters would do this?" Wolf asked, his voice shaking slightly, wether in anger, fear, or sadness, I couldn't tell.

The two rival teams sat in silence, gazing over the horrendous scene before them.

Finally, Fox broke the silence.

"We need to search for survivors. There might still be somebody alive," his voice was cold and hard, "Everyone split up, that'll ensure we get everywhere."

"Alright," Wolf said wearily, "Panther, you go sunward. Leon, you go thirty degrees left of that. I'll take thirty right,"

"Yes, sir," they said, flying off.

Fox split us up into different directions, his voice stone cold and hard as iron. We split off our focal point, flying slowly over the land below, looking desperately for any signs of life. I didn't have high hopes of finding anyone. It just wasn't going to happen.

The silence only deepened the despair, making me sag in my seat. I scanned in silence, turning off the chat monster as the signals got worse and worse. There just wasn't any hope.

Suddenly, about eleven o'clock of me, there was movement. I did a double take, then quickly switched on my radio.

"Hey, guys! I found something!" I yelled excitedly to the screen.

for a moment they just looked at me funny, then I realized I had forgotten to put in the ear piece. I grinned at my own stupidity, then grabbed the headset.

"I've got some movement. You all might want to see it," I said more professionally.

"Great. Send us your coordinates," Fox said, his hard mask falling away.

"Uhmm," I waited for instruction.

"Oh," Fox said, hitting his forehead with the palm of his hand, "Ok, you..."

He lead me through the complex method of sending the coordinates. As soon as I had hit send, I set off, turning off my radio from the exited chatter.

I flew closer to the figure, thinking that maybe I could help them in some way. They might be in shock! I reviewed how to treat for shock in my head. Were you supposed to raise the arms or legs? 'Ah, whatever.' I thought, 'It's probably different for aliens anyways.'

I landed a good hundred feet away from the lone figure, standing still facing away from me, and made my way toward them.

"Hey," I called out, picking up my pace to a jog, "Are you OK?"

As I approached, I slowed down. There must be something wrong. I started to close the twenty foot gap between us when shit hit the fan.

I was taking cautious steps, not wanting to startle the person, when the ground gave out below me. At the first split second, I thought it might just be a one or two foot hole beneath an ash layering. As the rest of my body fell through the layer, seeing what was in the pit below, I realized what was happening.

We weren't alone on this planet.

The team reached the coordinates quickly. We had been talking excitedly the whole way. Maybe the survivor could tell us up what had happened! We might even be able to get an advantage on this new enemy.

The first sign of what was wrong was the empty Arwing near the pit. Our happiness slowly paled as we got out of our Arwings and looked around. There was nobody to be seen. We widened our search from the Arwing, nearing the pit.

As I reached the pit, I looked down, and felt the blood rush out of my face.

There were tracks, and the takeoff marks of ships, but that's not what alarmed me. The thing that alarmed me was the small pool of fresh blood at the bottom.

It wasn't enough to have killed someone from blood loss, but it was enough to show something had happened.

Suddenly the nagging sensation in my stomach became a coil of fear. No Kevin, pit with blood, no bodies.

Kevin had been kidnapped.

**Thank you all for waiting! I feel like I've been battling writers block throughout this chapter, so if it seems to have sucky transitions, or is kind of dull at spots, I'm sorry. It's mildly stressful to keep up with this. Also, I have the end of the year coming up, so the IPad I've been writing this on is being taken away (seeing as it's school owned). This means I might not be writing for a while. I'm actually starting to get into the good part of the story too. Darn. Anyways, thank you for reading, and if you can spare the time, please review! even if I'm probably not going to see it for a while.**

**Thanks,**

**DisturbedFire out.**


	13. Revival of Intrest (kind of)

I lay still, trying not to twitch and give away my ploy. This would be my only chance.

I lay completely still, forcing a calm over myself. I stared at the backs of my eyelids intently, trying not to fall asleep. I slowly felt myself getting drowsy, and as my determination faltered, I started to watch the show my mind was playing me on the backs of my eyelids. The pictures were dark and undecipherable, almost not even there. I watched these flitting pictures with interest, allowing them to strengthen on my eyes.

I twitched back into wakefulness as the noises started to accompany the show. I didn't open my eyes, but I almost did, trying to force myself not to wake up. It was successful for a couple seconds, then I started to drift back into sleep. This time I tried to ignore the pictures and just see the dark shining red of the light through my eyelids.

I started to count as well. Just a simple series of numbers to keep yourself busy in your extreme boredom.

1, 2, 4, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384, 768, 1536... Just double the numbers.

I got really far into that before I gave up. Maybe they weren't coming tonight? Or today. Or whatever it is right now. It's not like I've got a clock in here or anything, cuz if I did, life would seem so much more real, ya know? It's like, when you do stuff and have no idea how much time has passed, or lost track, then time either seems to speed by, or go nowhere. Like in school, when I forget to study for some test, the periods before it seem to speed by like nothing else as I try to study, while on a regular day you can look at the clock twice an eternity and only have a minute and a half pass by. I mean, what's up with that?

I realized I was watching my minds slide show again, but this time I didn't fight it. If they weren't coming, why keep myself up?

I seemed to slowly seep into the fluffy dark land of oblivion, listening to the mentally produced noises around my little world. I felt a stinging itch hit me uncomfortably for a moment, then found myself back at home, looking at the faces of people I knew in my kitchen. My small group of school friends, my mom, the landlord, even my teachers. They were all standing- well I think so, I'm actually not even sure that in the dream they were anything other than heads, but I assume they were standing- around the table solemnly, staring, pale faced and emotionless.

It creeped me out really. Or at least, it did creep me out.

Until all hell broke loose.

Suddenly the door splintered into oblivion, and two tall, skinny, four armed bug-like silhouettes drifted into the room. The figures from my other silvery dreams. Everyone in the room screamed. A piercing chord of fright from unopened mouths and expressionless faces. They flowed through the doorway, with me following almost like a cameraman, not able to interact with any of the actors. As we passed into what should have been the small living room, I suddenly found myself on a crowded street in downtown New York, watching the screens in times square as they blew out and a ship suddenly rounded the building, shooting into the crowd, killing randomly. People falling down, mutilated limbs bleeding rivers of hot sticky blood into the sewers, and coating the vision of my dream. I suddenly found the spilt blood sizzling and boiling, like acid. People were being hit by balls of heated plasma, ripping through flesh with pure energy, and hitting the next people in the crowd, burning pits into their flesh, fusing muscle and bone. The screaming. It seemed to consume everything. But not from fear. From pain. Suddenly it was a field. A field of burned and bloody bodies, swarming with flies and accented with moans of the dying. I drifted over the field, stopping over the line of my acquaintances, their unseeing eyes staring accusingly at me. I felt dread. Guilt. Fear.

Thats when I saw the bug-creatures. They were walking through the field of bodies as if through one of flowers. They would pick up a mutilated body, each worse than the last, laughing. I cringed from the disgusting scene, nauseated. Suddenly, the point of view changed, leaving me standing in the field. The creatures saw me, tossing the stiff dead body to the side and growling menacingly at me. I turned and tried to run, but my feet wouldn't move. I looked at the creatures, bounding on all six limbs after me, their long arms rippling and propelling them as well as their legs. I looked down as if in molasses, and saw them. The stiff, swollen, crackling joints on the hands of the mutilated, seeping skeletal hands of my friends, mom, and teachers gripping at me, keeping me in place. I yanked and pulled, but no matter what I did, the dead wouldn't let me go. Nothing I could do would allow me to get rid of their dead gazes, locked on me with an expressionless and accusing gaze. I turned through the thickness of the air and saw the creatures flinging themselves off piles of dead bodies, wiry muscles flexing and rippling as they pounced. There was nothing to do now but scream. And I tried. But nothing. Not a sound escaped my lips but another moan of the dead.

* * *

><p>I jerked awake, soaked with sweat and panting hard. I was twitching and shaking insecurely. I jumped up and off the grey table, pacing around the room in circles. I completely ignored the bowl of slop at the end of the table. I was shaking with fear. How was I supposed to beat these things? They were invincible! They just took out all of New York and walked through fields of carnage like they were on a holiday! They murdered me and...<p>

Wait a minute.

I was still alive. It was just a dream. None of that happened. I knew this.

But it didn't make it seem any less real.

I had more or less stopped shaking, and was slowly coming out of the hazy nightmare. I scratched my shoulder absentmindedly, and stopped walking as I looked sharply at my lower arm. I found a welt the size of a grape on it. It looked like either some massive zit, or a shot that had a freaking huge needle.

Judging my current situation, it was probably the shot.

I faintly remembered the sharp itching numbness, and the want to scratch it before I had gone completely out.

I perked up as I realized what that meant.

That meant I was awake when they gave it to me. Which means I can be awake when they come to get me.

* * *

><p>I arrived at the coordinates shortly after receiving them. I was curious to see what Slippy had to show us, but I didn't want to get my hopes up in case It didn't lead us to Kevin.<p>

I hopped out of my Arwing and walked to the already assembled rest of the team.

"Oh, come ON Slippy! Just show us the damned thing already!" Falco was fuming, his eyes almost seeming to pop out of his skull.

"Oh, there you are Fox!" Slippy happily exclaimed, ignoring Falco.

"Yup," I said wearily, "Now, what is it that you wanted to show us?" I asked.

Slippy suddenly turned solemn and nodded sharply, "Follow me."

We walked a few paces and stopped by a small metal device lying in the scorched dirt. It was circular and only a few inches across, four prongs sticking out of the top. We stood there a moment, not understanding what it was.

"So," Falco, of course, "What the hell is it?"

"Well," said Slippy slowly, "From what I can tell, it appears to be a holographic communal sender-receiver node."

Judging by the blank faces, nobody but Slippy understood what he said at all.

"So could you tell us what it is in simple terms?" I asked politely.

Slippy sighed heavily, "Come on guys! It's a communication device!"

There was a collective 'Oh' from us, and then another one when we realized what that meant. If they were sending messages to this device, we could use its receiver to trace where the sender's coordinates were. Thats where they would be holding Kevin.

* * *

><p>I let my eyelids droop and close, humming some motivational songs to myself as I tried to keep myself awake enough not to fall asleep, but to seem like I was asleep. I had thought about it earlier and came to the conclusion that, if these aliens were experimenting on me, they must be studying me, and so they have to be monitoring my internal functions somehow. That meant that they could probably read my brain waves.<p>

When I came to that conclusion after a long mental adventure, I wondered why they had taken me before I was actually asleep. In a few minutes, it clicked.

Brain waves.

You send out waves as your brain activity increases, and so as you go to sleep, your waves reach a certain level. As I had reached the state of near sleep, my brain activity was reduced enough that it fooled the machines that monitored me. That meant if I did the same thing again, I could make myself wake up before they stick me with the sedative.

And so here I was, laying on the table, trying not to actually feel asleep.

I felt the drowsiness of the day's non-activities start to get to me, making my eyes roll up in my skull slightly and my muscles to relax. I let my mind go and watched the projection on my eyelids passively, waiting as it got stronger and stronger. There was a low hiss from on above me, but I ignored it and kept up my sleeping charade.

I felt myself being lifted and cradled like a baby and the air softly passing my face. I peeked through my eyelids drowsily, and found myself traveling up through a hole in the ceiling. The cradling sensation slowly lulled me into a drowsy sleep state. I tried pushing myself out of being asleep, but it was like trying to talk through molasses. I just couldn't force myself to do anything.

My couscous mind started to panic, but it was so far gone that I only FELT an oozing, echo of it. I felt my mind push harder to wake me, but it wasn't doing anything, and then I felt a sharp stinging sensation in my left arm, forcing my body to connect with my mind.

I felt a sudden rush of panic and fear, forcing my adrenaline to flood my veins, but I also felt a kind of fluffy darkness in my veins. Something I could fall into and just let it all go. I considered it for a second, and as I felt the fluff start to cloud my mind, I grabbed the side of my cheek between my teeth and bit down hard, forcing the dark to recede as well as a little flow of blood to seep onto my tongue.

I opened my eyes slightly, peeking through my eyelashes, and almost freaked out. There was a whitish grey alien face above me. I forced my muscles to not do anything as I stared back at the creature, pretending not to be seeing anything. It was a mostly featureless face, smooth and kind of a rounded cone shape, kinda like an anteater, but it had no mouth and it's eyes were paneled like a fly's, but were the same off-white and almost flush with the rest of the creatures face.

I felt a shiver come on, but forced it back, knowing that any reaction whatsoever could give me away. I felt my fear and disgust force the sedative back, and allowed myself to close my eyes. I felt four solid limbs supporting me, so that meant that the creature had at least four arms, and judging by the steady swing back and fourth, two legs.

I stiffened a little as I was lain on a cool surface, another creature standing over me. I forced myself to relax and studied my captors. they were much different than any of the other aliens I had seen. They were in no way even close to being humanoid, with four arms, and another pair of tentacle-like appendages. Their bodies went from hips to a kind of solid gut, then went off as shoulders and arms, but above that, there was another little 'gut' before the next set of shoulders and arms. The tentacles (although they were more like really freaking skinny arms with a hell-of-a-lot of joints that ended in a kind of three-fingered hand) seemed to be coming from their backs, and twitched a lot, kind of like tails. They were both completely that ashy white-grey color, and seemed almost to shine dully.

I watched in amazement at the two creatures who seemed to be bickering above me. They were quite the specimens. One was obviously agitated, and it showed in the frequency it's tentacle things swished and twitched. The other one seemed to be trying to convince it of something, and was waving its limbs in what seemed to be motions as it spoke. Their language was fast, precise, and had a lot of clicks, snaps, and tone changes in it, and they were sounding up a storm.

I caught myself jerking awake, and knew I wouldn't last much longer. I glanced around the room frantically, trying to find an escape route. I hadn't really thought this far into my plan, I guess. I did, however see a panel that seemed to either be a clear substance like glass, or some kind of bubble or force field, and behind it was a group of the creatures, watching the two who were beside me noising it up.

Finally the aggressive one started to raise the volume of its sounds, (obviously yelling, but that would sound awkward for this kind of noise) and the other one raised its hands in surrender. I almost laughed, because it did the exact same thing I do as an 'alright, I surrender' motion, only with all of its upper limbs.

The aggressive one turned around and walked out of my field of vision. I was left looking at the other one, who made a quiet, sudden purring sound, and looked at me, seeming to meet my gaze. I almost stiffened, but caught myself and made myself keep looking at it. I had read somewhere that 80-90 percent of the time you think you are spotted, but the spotter doesn't look certain, they aren't, and if you stay still, they wont see you, so I was hoping like hell that it was true.

The creature didn't seem to notice my slightly open eyes, and as I looked into those nearly indiscernible eyes, I could almost swear it looked almost sad. It's tentacles were drooping slightly, and it made the purring noise again. I saw it straighten slightly and look up, above my head. I couldn't look cuz I would have to move, so I just hoped nothing bad was happening. I heard the noises of the creatures start up again, and felt a needle pierce my arm. It suddenly burned like liquid fire, and then seemed to freeze over, taking my consciousness with it.

* * *

><p>I woke up with an aching throb everywhere, and just generally feeling like shit, and as I tried to sit up to restart my daily routine, I found that I was strapped down. It was kind of unnerving after all this time. Why now? What did they want that they couldn't already have gotten?<p>

I suddenly had visions of them taking out my organs before my eyes, and possibly eating them. I thrashed against my bonds in terror, then stopped as I felt a tearing and piercing pain in basically every bone. I looked down at my body, and saw a needle in every large limb of my body. They were all attached to tubes of blue liquid things, and I realized that the throbbing was caused by the liquid slowly emptying into me.

I'll be the first to admit I started to cry a little. Not in fear though, in frustration. Now there was no way I'd get out, and this liquid may just be a kind of torture method, devised to make my veins and organs tear themselves apart due to too many fluids. I resolved that no matter how painful this may get, I wouldn't pass out, and I wouldn't beg.

I was like that for the better part of the day, and was really getting bored. I was still trying to convince myself that if I dozed off, it wouldn't be considered passing out since it wasn't from pain. I figured that sleeping was different and closed my eyes. I slowly drifted off, the fullness of my veins physically noticeable now.

* * *

><p>I woke up feeling balloted and sensitive. The stuff from the tubes was gone, all in me now, and I was ready for a creature to walk in and start some kind of interrogation.<p>

I was ready for a long time, then got hungry.

I realized I was hungry when my stomach basically transformed into a hawk and screeched at me. I struggled against my bonds again, not thrashing wildly because of the needles, but straining with all my might, trying to see if maybe one would give way. Nothing did.

After a few minutes, I relaxed and lay, still staring at the ceiling. I felt the burn in all of my muscles, and knew that if I ever got out of this, I would really need to work out again, cuz I was getting tired way too easily. I closed my eyes and lay there until I fell asleep again.

* * *

><p>This time I woke up feeling refreshed and energized. I was still hungry as hell, but I felt like I had slept for a month, which for all I know, I could have. I sighed as I felt the bonds still on my body, and my good mood dropped immediately. I decided another attempt at breaking free would be worth it, and started pulling halfheartedly, knowing they wouldn't budge. Of course they didn't, but I heard a creaking, as if something was straining heavily.<p>

I looked at the source of the noise, the bond on my left hand. I pulled again, curiously, and heard the creak. I yanked my hand up, and the rope-thingy just snapped. I looked at my hand in disbelief, and turned to my right hand, yanking it up too. This rope snapped just as easily. I pulled both my legs up as the same time, trying to break both at the same time, but instead of snapping my foot ropes, the one across my middle snapped and I ended up sitting up.

I reached down, grinning wildly at this new strength and reached down to tear the foot ropes off. They were just as easy as the other ones, and I grinned as they snapped under the pressure. I felt an indescribable bubbling sensation in my chest, and tore the needles out of me, throwing them at the wall across from me. They shattered loudly, leaving small scratches where they hit.

I spun myself on the table, hanging my feet over the edge and feeling the floor. I set my weight on my feet and stood up slowly, feeling the weight of my body on the bottoms of my feet. I felt bulgy, like something extra was filling me up, which is probably true, but I also felt light, like I could just jump up punch through walls, or do a quadruple backflip. Wanting to test this, I of course opted for a chance at escape as well.

I jumped up onto the table, just a streight up sanding-jump, and reached out of the ceiling, feeling every motion my body made like a butterfly's wing beat. Just smooth, fluid, and almost seeming delicate. I felt the ceiling for the hatch which I knew was there by now, and felt it, a smooth seam in the center of the lighted panel, and of course I was looking away, cuz it was bright.

I tugged and felt the panel give slightly, so I tugged harder, making it crack open a little, but that was it. I tugged and pulled for a long time, reveling at the feeling of my muscles tightening against my skin, almost making my skin feel too small. Soon enough though, I started getting really frustrated that I couldn't open it, or even look at it. I started jerking at it angrily, only making it worse when one hand slipped and the crack slammed shut on the other fingers.

I felt a fit of boiling rage boil up from somewhere in the back of my belly and yelled, slamming my clenched fist against the panel. Two things happen in that moment. The first was that the panel darkened, and the second was that I felt something give under my punch. I looked up, surprised, and saw that there was a set of knuckle shaped dents in the panel, which was now only half as bright as it was, making it possible to look at.

I felt giddy as reached up to try to tug the panel open again, but paused when I saw my hand. The knuckles were all split wide open, oozing blood, and two of my fingers were at funny angles. So thats what gave. I opened my hand, curious at the lack of pain, and saw my fingers slowly twitch upright, then with a loud CRUNCH, pop back into place, sending only a dull wave of pain to me.

I clenched and unclenched my hand for a little while, looking to make sure it was working right, and then realized that if I didn't cover it, it might just keep bleeding. I looked around for something to wrap it with, but I was still in an empty room. I panicked for a second, then realized, hey, I've got a shirt. I can use that. So I took off my shirt and ripped off a section to wrap around my knuckles.

After tying them up, I got back up and tugged at the panel, feeling it give a little bit more, and a little bit more. I felt a little stream of blood trickle down onto my wrist, but ignored it as I gave one last heave, causing the panel to give way. I let a feeling of triumph wash over me for a second, then forced it back as I put it in my minds eye that now I had to escape for good.

I hopped a little, and grabbed the ground of the floor above me, and heaved myself up. I looked around the empty room above me, just as big as my cell, but full of monitors displaying things, and strange letters, I glanced over them for a moment, then looked around for the door.

I found it, and started heading out, but just before leaving, something caught my eye. I looked at the monitor by the door. It had little graphs, and it was blinking red. All the stats were at zero. And the flashing red letters probably meant an alarm.

Shit.

I heard a commotion out in the hallway and felt a cold pit of fear sink into my stomach. I jumped out into the hallway, and sure enough, there were two of the creatures to my left. They both stopped when they saw me and we all... Well, I glared at them. I'm not sure what they were doing. They were just tall, pale, skinny, unreadable demons to me.

We all stood there, looking at each other silently, then the creature on the left raised one of the tentacle appendages and pointed it in my direction, screeching loudly. I'm not ashamed to say I turned and hauled ass outa there. I flew down the pale-grey corridors effortlessly. Everything was extremely tall and narrow, and the same color. The only reason I was able to tell where one wall ended and the next began was because of a dark-grey grid pattern covering every surface, only broken by the occasional monitor set into the wall.

The click clacking of the creatures noise-language behind me ceased, and all I could hear now was the air rushing past my ears and the sound of my breathing. I glanced over my shoulder, not hearing anything I wouldn't hear alone.

And there was an alien face right behind me.

I was wrong with my earlier assumption that they didn't have mouths. They had something much worse.

When I turned around, the alien's face, which I will say, still looked kind of like an ant-eater's, split open at the snout-part, and a whole octopus worth of tentacles came out, waving wildly in my direction. They were about the length of my middle finger, but were thin as a pencil and were barbed on the inside, leading to a dark hole in the center, filled with little rings of spikies that shifted back and forth, creating a grinding sensation, like a garbage disposal.

I will be the first to say that that face, along with four limbs and two tentacles stretched out towards me, made me scream. [No, of course not a girlie scream. What kind of intergalactic prisoner would he be if he screamed like a girl?] I pumped my legs as hard as I physically could, and took off, flying through the corridors, and hopefully leaving the creatures behind. After a minute of running, I looked back, and neither of them were in sight.

I slowed down, and allowed my shaking legs to rest a little bit, walking it off. I looked around and tried to find some way out. All I could see was that maddening pattern of grid. I looked down at my hand, and noted that the blood was drying on the shirt as a red with bluish specks in it. Why the hell my liver left it in my body, I have no idea.

I glanced up again and realized I was in another room like the one I had escaped from. Monitors everywhere, and a hexagonal panel in the center of the floor. I stepped on the panel, hoping maybe to open it, but nothing happened. I said 'open' but of course that didn't work, cuz I wasn't even using a language that was close. Then I decided to look at the monitor on the wall with a slider that went from a black hexagon to a white hexagon. I slid it open, and heard a small hiss from the middle of the room. I practically skipped over to the opening and peered down into the hole.

And a flying fuzzy brick hit me square in the face.

Not really a brick, I realized, as it started to punch and scratch me.

Astounding myself with my reflexes, I caught both scratching tools and held them up in the air. I was looking at a scruffy looking cat, black and white, who was glaring at me like he was looking at hell incarnate, his ears turned and flattened against his skull.

"Do you speak this language?" I whispered softly to him.

His head cocked a little and his eyes narrowed even further.

"Yeah," he said, not being quiet about it at all, "Why?"

"SHHH!" I hissed at him. "I just broke out and I'm trying to escape. I saw your... Well this room, and figured that there would be a prisoner here too, so I wanted to see if you wanted to help me escape."

The little cat, cuz I'm gonna judge him to be about nine to eleven, looked at me like I was crazy.

"Of course I want to escape. I'm a fucking prisoner, aren't I?" he stumbled uncomfortably over the f-word, and I grinned at his mild innocence display, dropping his wrists.

"Alright then, just follow me, keep your voice down, keep an eye out for an escape, and watch your language. You're still too young to be using those words." I whispered, smiling a little.

"Not until we find my sister." he whispered, crossing his arms and turning his ears back, his tail, which I had not noticed until now, swishing back and forth agitatedly.

"Kid, I don't know how much about this place you know, but I've been sprinting through this place for nearly five minu... A long time, and I still haven't found an end. I've probably passed a good number of holding cells, and we don't have the time to look through all of them for one person." I whispered quickly.

"No." he whispered back again, not moving.

"Oh, come on!" I whispered, exasperated, "We've got to..."

I heard a clicking start up behind me, and I saw the kids eyes widen. I knew I was in deep crap now. I spun around to face the closed faced creature, who's mouth split open and started motioning as it spoke; "You little lower creature and you young little lower creature," he said pointing at me and the kid with an upper arm, "are in near time going to hurt much as me and other upper superiors feed you to the /'oi~."

[I am going to use a /' for a clicking noise, a ~ for a popping sound]

It kept talking, but I freaked out and punched it in the face, grabbing the kids arm and yanking him after me as I hurdled past the alien and into the hallway again. I heard the alien make a faint velociraptor noise, and I ran dead into a wall of the creatures.

I was grabbed by two of them by the arms arms immobilizing them, and the third grabbed the kid and held him with it's tentacles. I struggled, but the things locked me down by using their other arms to grab me. I was greeted to the sight of the alien I punched being pulled out of the room by two of its comrades. It was being dragged, and it's face was partially caved in where I hit it. Something was oozing out of the caved in area, and I felt a curious feeling of sickening satisfaction as I realized that I may have killed it.

I looked down at my hand, and found that the knuckles were bleeding. Not as bad as the other hand, but they were definitely oozing some blue-flecked red of their own. I struggled fiercely, but having six limbs, the aliens had leverage over me, so not even my newly found brute strength could get me out. I stopped struggling as one of the creatures who was dragging his fallen comrade got right up in my face and stared at me. I glared right back at him... Her... It. I glared back at IT with hate.

We stayed there a moment then it finally spoke, it's snout thing splitting up and clacking back together right in front of me.

"You lower creature person have killed our over-walker leader. You two under-walkers will be feed to great /'oi~." It said, it's face forming the words awkwardly.

I spat in the creatures face and it jerked back slightly, making a squelching noise, then lashed back with one of its tentacle-tongue things, catching me on my jaw. The friction of the action forced my face to the side a little, and I could feel blood starting to well up from the stinging cut where the creature had sliced me with its tentacle-teeth. I bright my face level with the aliens, and glared defiantly at it, not allowing myself to show any weakness to this thing.

It stepped back and looked at the little kid.

"You. I see you in early time. You have blood-friend. She now also feed to great /'oi~."

It looked up and addressed the two creatures holding me, making a flurry of unrecognizable clicks, hisses, tone changes, and pops. The two holding me turned around and started marching me away. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the kid being carried wiggling back into his cell. I knew it wasn't going to get me anywhere to struggle, so I slumped down and allowed the things to carry me.

All I could do now was to wait and find out what this great /'oi~ thing was.

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><p><strong>I'm sorry it's taking me forever to get this thing cranked out, but I lost interest at the beginning of the year, and never really started to get back into it from when I got my device back. Now, I am a little excited to see where this will go again, but first I've gotten more feedback on another story, and so I may halt this one for a while until I finish the other one, or at least only focus at one-at-a-time. Hopefully those of you who are interested will comment, because there is no better way to encourage a writer to write than to tell them how to improve, create suspense, or give ideas if they seem to be in a rut. Right now, I kinda got a glimmer of where it is going, but it may end up completely different when I get there. That first song I had said gave me the story idea? Yeah. I can't even remember what song it was anymore.<strong>

**So anyway, please tell me how bad I'm doing so that I can get better!**

**Thank you,**

**DisturbedFire out.**

* * *

><p><strong>I forgot to ask! Should I throw in a side romance thingy? It probably won't affect where the story goes, but I just thought I'd ask, just in case. Please tell me in comments or in a poll that I'm setting up in my profile.<strong>


	14. The Starting-of-Action Plot is Revealed

I woke up to the sound of the lid-hatch opening above my head, creating a dull confusion in my still sluggish brain. For one thing, I was wondering why I was still alive. Weren't the aliens going to feed me to that great /'oi~ thing? Why hadn't they? I finally focused my eyes on the alien who was now standing above me, fiddling with a bunch of equipment that it was carrying in it's arms.

"So," I slurred, "Time of dying, much yet?"

The alien looked at me funny and I remembered that it didn't natively speak my language, so it wouldn't understand that skewered sentance.

"Am I being feed for this 'great thingamabob' yet?" I amended.

It looked at me for a moment, then said something that I never thought I'd hear from one of my captors.

"You must be quiet." it said, "I'm going to help you escape."

I didn't say anything, not quite believing the creature. I hadn't thought they would try and torture me before I was killed, but here it was. They sent one of their kind to give me hope, just before they snatched it away.

"Right." I finally answered sarcastically, "And how are you going to do that? Blow a hole through all the walls in this damn building to give me a clear shot at getting outside to hide out, assuming that we're not in space somewhere right now?"

"No." it stated, focused intently on the things in its hands. "You are going to defeat the Great /'oi~."

"And how am I going to do that?" I asked, "Actually, what is this thing anyways? It's obviously powerful, or respected, or your ruler, or something, cuz you all call it 'great' and you say it will destroy me, so what is it?"

The alien remained silent for a moment, then "It's a giant beast, with six legs, many appendages, and much strength. You will be feed for it to keep it not hungry so it doesn't break out and destroy our people."

"Ok, so two things. One, are we are on a ship, and HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO KILL SOMETHING THAT YOU FEED SO IT DOESN'T DESTROY YOU?!"

"You will have the Fluid." he said simple, not affected by my anger, and ignoring my first question all together.

"And what may that be, pray tell?" I asked, not caring about my first question anymore.

It looked at me funny, and I realized that I used another figure of speech.

"We were a great race in the olden days." the alien said, completely ignoring my question, "We were strong, proud creatures, who were, as we believed, the only complex organisms in the universe. We had monitored the heavens for many many lifetimes, listening for any sign of life out there. We never heard anything, and so we were content to sit on our planet and live out our lives. One day though, our scientists came out with the capability to travel across great distances of space in short periods of time. Our planet, which was slowly dying as our sun weakened, was becoming too limiting for our people, and we needed to find one that we could survive on. Our people sent out an expedition of scientists to examine the planet they found, and it seemed perfect, except one thing. There were others there already. Nobody had even thought about there being other life forms for centuries, but here they were, and they were aggressive. They killed many of our expedition, and when we retreated, the peaceful nature of these scientists was shattered."

"They returned to our planet and told of what happened, and for a long time, we prepared to wipe them out. We returned after that time, having only developed weapons of destruction to wipe them out. We did, but only at a cost of many lives. On this new planet, we flourished, and came to realize from many more deep space expeditions, that there were many, many planets like that one."

"Slowly, our populations grew too much for the planet to sustain, and we left for a new one, but this time we left to conquer. It did not take long, and the planets native species did not stand a chance. We killed almost all of them, and the rest were used as slaves and experimental beings. We lived peacefully for many generations, but our populations again reached the limits of the planets capacity. We needed much more living space. We left to conquer our galaxy, and succeeded. None of the other races stood a chance."

"We lived peacefully for many lifetimes to come. In that time, we discovered, learned, and trained in the art of war. We were once a peaceful people, but now all we seem to want is power, territory, and goods. We have become shameless, slaughtering innocents, razing harmless cities, killing unnecessarily. We have all the space we would ever need, but it's it's not enough. Our leaders want us to conquer and expand for wealth. To become the rulers of the universe. We have created weapons and armor for the ultimate army, but that's not enough either. They want to be the Ultimate Race."

The alien paused for a moment, then made that shuddering purr again.

"And we almost have."

I looked at it for a moment, trying to process all of what I was just told.

"And... So why are you helping me?" I asked, still skeptical.

"Because this destroys all the other races and creatures histories, leaving us ignorant of history." it said after a moment.

"No, really." I said, "Why? If you are the ultimate race, you don't need to care about the other races, let alone their histories."

The alien looked at the ground a moment, then tilted its head back up toward me again.

"Alright. I believe that what is being done goes against the Ultimate Ones. I am afraid that if we create an ultimate species, there will be no reason to look to them, or that our Leaders will declare themselves the more powerful." it said, and then; "That is why I am making you the first, and - if you will help - only, one of the ultimate race."

"Woah, woah, woah. What?" I said, my head snapping up from examining its feet to look it streight in the face.

"I want to make you able to kill the great /'oi~. You need this altering to do this."

"No, but you said that this Ultimate Race shouldn't be created, but that now you want to make me one?"

"Temporarily," said the alien, "We have been testing different aspects of the serum on different subjects from captured planets, and none of them seemed to be permanent. Only one part was able to be created and sustained in a creature."

"What is it." I groaned, not wanting to be altered, especially if it wasn't going to be cool or permanent.

"We created a sustained method of creating a chemical that seems to reduce the amount of effort needed to do physical work."

"Wait... So you are telling me that you created a super-strength serum?"

"Yes, as well as a natural armor, a method to strengthen your skeleton, and a way to increase your immunity to diseases and the strength of your organs. We also created attachable weapons, such as blasters or communicators that we can implant into your body, but those take to long to implant, and sadly, only the strength liquid is permanent, to our knowing."

"...And... What is your knowing?"

"Well, the immunity tests have not been evaluated enough and the natural armor is only as long as the implanted liquid is still in existence. For the strengthening of your skeletal, it can be permanent, but for some subjects it did not bond, so we call it temporary."

"Umm... OK?" I said, seriously worried about how I would turn out after all of these 'alterations' were completed. But then again, I would have no chance of living through this encounter if it didn't try it.

"Good. I will need to sedate you."

"Wait! I need-" and there was a prick in my arm, and the fluffy darkness engulfed me again. I struggled to keep myself awake, but the alien looked at me, tilted its head, then turned for a moment, knelt, stood, turned back to me, and pricked my other arm with another sedative. This time the darkness flooded my veins and slammed my eyes shut.

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><p><strong>Sorry for the short chapter, but I needed to set that up, and I need to ask again, I have another chance to turn Kevin into an Anthro if you want me to, and I also have an idea for a kind of humanoid-alien-like thing I could turn kevin into, and I need to know what you good people want me to do, so if you could tell me in the poll that I'm setting up in my profile, it would be appreciated!<strong>

**Thank you all!**

**DisturbedFire out.**


	15. Sorry for the Wait

I felt a pinching in my eyes, surfacing my consciousness. My eyelids glowed red, meaning there was most likely a bright, piercing light outside. Not a good idea to open my eyes. I lay there, allowing my consciousness to seep in as I felt the sensations of my body. They felt good.

I felt beautifully rested, and felt powerful, and even though I just woke up. The only thing that did not feel good was that my hands and feet were tied together, and the slight chafing on my body, one at about shoulder level and the other at mid-thigh. That and that I was slanted at somewhere around a 45 degree angle, my head up. Finally, I grew curious enough to want to know what was going on outside my own little bubble, so I peered through my eyelashes...

...And wanted to go right back to being obliviously asleep.

I was in a brightly light arena - looking right at one of the damn spotlights of course - and was most likely tied to something. I looked around, trying to look as asleep as possible. There were two stone slabs to either side of me - facing at angles so that I could not see what was on them, and it looked like they had ropes around them. I shifted a little on the cold rock beneath myself, and deduced that there were at least two other people in here with me.

The arena was filling with alien thingamabobs, the dull roar of clicks, clacks, clucks, and hisses growing louder. My mind ground away at the information given to me almost instantly. I was in an arena, filled with spectators. I was tied down so that wasn't good, and I was expected to be fighting this 'Great /'oi~', so that's probably where I was, but the two others to my sides didn't make sense... Who were they? I had assumed I would be alone in the feeding...

The kid. That one alien told him he would be feed too. But then who was the other? I feel like it would have to be a freaking huge monster to devour more than one or two creatures at a time, even if one was a little kid.

I shrugged and shook my head, deciding that it wasn't worth dragging this out.

I opened my eyes fully, ready for whatever they wanted to throw at me. I heard a swell in the nose level of the crowd, and started to scan the area for anything that would be useful.

The arena was quite remarkable, actually. From what I could see, it was oval shaped, the walls were a good twenty feet tall, and it was a good hundred to hundred and fifty feet or so to the closest part of the wall, which was made out of something that looked like metal, but despite that modern feature, the arena in general looked quite old. There were two posts to either side of me, and looked to made of ancient wood. They had gouges in them, and both seemed to be coated in layers of dust, most likely from the ground, which was covered in a dark, coppery-crimson colored dirt, a hazy layer of dust-like dirt seeming to hover above the actual ground, which was packed down by countless who-knows-whats before me.

I glared around the arena, but I'm not sure why. It just seemed like the thing to do. The crowd seemed to stare back at me, clicking and clacking to themselves. I looked for anything that would mean a weakness in the security of the wall of the arena, but not only was the wall tall, but there was a band of three suspicious green lines on the inside of the wall - kind of like how the three layered barbed wires stick in from their fences - that looked like lasers.

I heard a low, long, drawn out sound behind me, and did everything I could to shift positions enough to see over the back of the rock. I had no such luck, but as soon as I stopped struggling, an alien stepped out in front of my rock, holding a long, brass-colored, pencil-thin stick in its hand. It strode out from my rock a few paces, then stopped and looked up at the crowd. It clicked the back of the stick like a pen, then started making noises into it.

I heard the noises repeat from the stands, like an echo, while the thing speaking waved its arms around, making motions and jesters, reminding me of a stage announcer. As I thought it, I knew it to be true. The thing in its hand was a microphone, and the noises I heard coming back were it's, repeated through a sound system.

It spoke for a time, then swung back to me, it gestured to me with two of its arms, and the crowd went wild. The creature in front of me went quiet until the noise died down, then started speaking again. But it only made a few noises before gesturing to the wall in front of itself, and as it did so, a short, wide door opened from the seemingly flawless metal walls. Two other prisoners were escorted out onto the field with tight mustard colored sacs on their heads. The crowd went ballistic.

The prisoners were led to the two posts to either side of me, and their hands were tied around the thick posts by the guards escorting them. The guards finished quickly, and retreated quickly followed by the announcer alien. Right before it left the arena though, it turned back, made a few noises, waved it's arm, and jumped into the closing doors. As soon as they banged shut, though, I heard another one open, but it was to my right behind the other rock. I strained to see over the other rock, and eventually shuffled far enough to see the top of a ginormous door opening from that side of the arena.

I shuddered involuntarily and tried to get farther up on the rock. Another violent shudder racked my body, and I finally shifted far enough up to see what was going on. I felt my body shudder again, but now I knew it wasn't just me. The whole arena was shaking.

I was looking right at one of the biggest creatures I had ever seen in my life, and it was slowly making its way over to me. The walls and stands of the arena started to raise higher as the giant made its way out of the doors. The creature was easily twenty feet tall, but it was hunched over, bringing it closer to fifteen feet. It's head was long, and looked like a big watermelon. A big, pac-man watermelon with giant, pointy teeth and a mouth that was leaking thick strings of steaming drool. The head was attached to a thick neck which was about as thick as the head itself, and continued down for a few feet before attaching to the strangest body I had seen on a creature yet.

The body started out thick and bony by the arms, like some kind of rib cage, but under that, it thinned out to just about half the size. The legs were short but thick, and a stumpy tail dragged along the ground behind it. It had an awkward gait - kind of a slow swing of the body to throw the leg out in front - and it moved slowly, shaking the ground with each step. The tail of the beast swiped the dirt, throwing up clouds of dust.

I gaped like a fish for a moment, trying to grasp the situation. I am supposed to fight that?!

Then again, the original aliens that we're trying to FEED me to the the great thingy, not make me fight it. It was the scientist one that wanted me to fight it. The ground shook again, bringing me back to my senses. I struggled like mad to get out of the ropes holding me on the slab, shimmering and flopping around like a fish out of water.

I soon shifted far enough up on the rock to let myself flop backwards off the rock, and so of course I did without hesitation.

And the rope that was still holding my feet to the rock caught and all I did was slam my head against the ground as I fell upside down.

"Great. Perfect. Totally freaking brilliant." I muttered to myself as I shifted around, trying to free my legs. I finally got them out from beneath the rope, and pushed off, grateful to be free of the stupid rope. My body fell to the ground, and, my feet being tied together, hit the ground solidly, but it didn't hurt. I arched my butt up, then pushed myself up onto my feet with my face.

I started working my way out of the ropes holding my hands together, but when they didn't want to budge, loosen or slide off, I got mad, and started to strain my arms in different directions without thinking, trying to break the ropes. I felt my heart quicken and the blood pulsing in my neck as the ropes dug into my skin.

I grunted and pulled, feeling the blood filling my face as I strained. The ropes on my hands suddenly started popping and cracking softly, groaning as the minute fibers slowly relinquished their singularity. They groaned louder and louder until I felt my wrists start to inch apart. Then suddenly with a sigh from the ropes, my wrists were free. I quickly got to work on loosing the bonds from my ankles, ignoring the throbbing and tickling of liquid from my wrists. The old ropes on my feet were easily broken since they were old and I had a better leverage point.

I spread my feet to shoulder length and rolled my neck, put my arms out and slowly raised them to the sky as I stretched my whole body upwards, trying to dispel the stiffness. I jogged to the post closest to the creature - which was only halfway there with it's slow saunter - and found the little kid I broke out earlier hanging from the post by his wrists, unconscious. I grabbed him by the armpits and shook him, trying to wake him up. He just kind of made a snoring noise and his head flopped around.

'Fuck'. I thought, annoyed. I reached up and started working on his bound wrists, muttering angrily to myself. I fumbled for a moment, feeling the ground shudder beneath me with every step the monster took. I finally got the knot undone, and the rope fell from his wrists, letting the feline flop onto the ground unceremoniously.

"Fuck," I mumbled to myself as I realized what happened. The kid, on the other hand, immediately pounced up into a crouch hissing, his ears back and eyes in slits. He scanned the area hysterically, not seeming to see anything until his pupils seemed to contract and focus on me. He suddenly seemed to shift from an angry and slightly threatening animal to small and frightened little kid in the span of a second. He shuffled over to me and huddled close to me as he took in his surroundings.

"Hey you," I said softly, trying not to scare the poor kid to death, "I need your help. We're going to get everybody here out, so go and try to untie the people on those rocks over there, okay?"

He looked up at me with wide eyes uncomprehendingly for a moment so I nodded encouragingly, and he took off to the slabs in the center of the arena.

'Good,' I thought briefly. 'At least the others might have at least the _hope_ of a fighting chance if I fail.'

I turned to face the beast towering above me. It's many beady eyes glinted wetly, like grapes in it's head, it's jowls dripping thick, steaming ropes of drool.

I sighed, a feeling of heavyness and thickness settling into my body. I had never felt it before, but I knew now what it was.

True dispair.

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><p><strong>Hey guys. I'm sorry that this chapter took forever and a half, probably more so for you than me. My excuses are that I was tired, I had schoolwork, and I got sick for a long while, but those aren't good enough. The real reason was probably that I was just super unmotivated up until now. I did have a lot of school stuff, and that just seemed to drain all creativity and will out of me. I know I should have just muscled through it, and I'm sorry. I really didn't even have a clear plan for this chapter at all. I just wanted to get to what I had planned for next chapter.<strong>

**Again, sorry for the super-long wait, and I hope you enjoy, even if the wait makes it bitter.**

**DisturbedFire.**


	16. Dance With the Devil

I looked up at the grimacing maw of the creature above me, dripping hot strings of saliva onto the ground. I looked on in a dazed, apathetic state, not seeming to process or care what was about to happen to me. The creature slowly bent over and sniffed at me, then arched up to the blazing red-hued sky and roared.

It bent over and swiped it's paw at me; as it neared, I seemed to break out of the spell. I stumbled back and fell to the ground awkwardly. The creature finished it's slow sweep and twisted it's upper body back to the foreward position. It's head twitched to each side, and it bent over, putting it's giant paws on the ground to either side of me. I closed my eyes and twisted my head away as it brought it's face close to me, and took a deep breath through two deep slits in the top of it's lumpy head. It swung it's head foreward and nudged me back. I opened my eyes as it pushed itself up with it's arms and brought it's arm back up for another swipe.

I scrambled to my feet and jumped out of the way. When the creature missed this time, it shook it's head and snorted, then made a kind of deep chirping sound. It twisted it's head to the side and brought it close to me, bringing it's black, beady, baseball-sized eyes right in front of me. It looked at me without emotion, without mercy, without intelligence. I looked into those eyes fearfully, and felt my strength leave. I started to back up, but I ran into something. I glanced back, and saw that the creature was using it's arms to create a barrier around me, trying to keep me from leaving. I could see the little kid through the small gaps in the creature's claws, seeing him struggling to detach the unconscious person on the other post.

For him. For the prisoners. I had been given gifts by the doctor for a reason. It was time to use them. I jabbed my hand into the eye of the beast, grabbing a handful of slimy, black mush. Fluid gushed out around my hand, staining the ragged t-shirt I was wearing. I twisted my hand and was yanked toward the beast as it quickly jerked it's head away. I was lifted by the quick motion, and when I fell out of the eye, I flipped and landed on my back. I was dazed for a moment as I tried to regain my breath, but creature was incapacitated too, falling onto the ground with an earth shaking boom, clutching it's wounded eye. It roared in pain and shuddered on the ground for a moment, and I quickly got up and ran, trying to put some distance between me and the shaking beast.

The doctor had told me that he gave me certain powers. What were they? I just couldn't seem to remember.

Suddenly something that was me, but not me seemed to speak to me, but without words. Just pictures and feelings. I felt a rush of confidence and calm as the beast stood up. It was no longer holding it's eye, but it was hunched over as if straining. I looked at the slowly leaking hole it it's head and saw it twitch. Then it started to move, compressing as the folds of skin moved up the creature's face. I watched in a fascinated horror as the beast revealed two larger, red, orbs in a mass of sunken, puffy flesh.

As I peered into the dark orb, I felt myself being pulled in, a fascination forming with the angry orb. The dark red center, nearly black, webbed with lighter veins, became lighter as it got closer to the edge, then seemed to merge with the puffy folds of skin under the shiny sphere.

I felt another nudge of consciousness that wasn't me. It told me to look away, but I couldn't. I watched as the creature raised a paw to swing at me. I knew I wouldn't live if I didn't move, but I couldn't. My body wouldn't look away from that red death trap. I felt resigned to my fate as the raised claws started to approach, but the me that wasn't me wasn't. I felt a strange sensation as I suddenly broke out in a massive sweat. The great paw was about to smash my face into the ground, but I felt the liquid I just released harden, encasing me in a hard shell.

The paw struck me, and I went flying through the air. I smashed into the ground in a bone-shattering collision, but the shell that I was encased in took the force as it shattered. I suddenly remembered the doctor telling me about the skin-armor fluid he was going to inject into my skin. Well, there it was.

I shook my head and grinned savagely as I remembered the rest of the conversation. If the alien had given me all the things he promised, then maybe, just maybe, this could be possible.

"Alright," I said, slowly getting to my feet, "Let's dance."

I ran at the creature at full sprint, my mind seeming to pulsate, but not painfully. It was like there were two beings in me, corresponding and acting through each other. I neared the creature and it swung it's long arms, trying to strike me down, but I reacted of instinct and jumped onto it's hand, crouching down and grabbing a handful of the thick leathery skin. It's arm finished the swing, carrying me along behind it's shoulder. I jumped onto the creatures back and grabbed the skin of it's neck, pulling hard to the left. The creature screeched deafeningly, and reached it's long stringy arms back and grabbed at me. I felt and reacted, thinking less and less as my body took control, reacting to the slightest touch of the creature and shifted out of it's grasp.

The beast growled in frustration, a deep low, reverberating sound, deep below me. It suddenly spun and fell backwards, catching me by surprise as it smashed my body against the thick wooden post behind me. I was shaken off as the post split and I fell to the ground, landing painfully on the cracked, trunk-like post. I rolled over, feeling my sore ribs tenderly. They came back wet and sticky with blood. I looked up at the creature looming over me, bearing it's teeth in a savage grin. I knew I didn't have any more time. I grabbed the split half of the post I landed on.

I tried to shuffle to my feet, but the creature pinned me down with it's raptor-like feet, punching it's claws into the flesh of my shoulders. I felt my shirt slowly soaking up the warm liquid as the creature reached it's arm down and grabbed my body from under it's foot. It raised me to it's mouth and started to put me in, but I brought the post up and jabbed it into the creature's mouth, trying to drive it into the brain, but I slipped, and all I did was jab the roof. The creature roared, splattering me with hot saliva.

It pulled me out of it's mouth and slammed me to the ground with it's paw. My vision swam in black as my head cracked against the ground, and bright spots flitted around as I felt a dull cracking of one of my bones. The darkness receded as the monster grabbed my legs once more. It shook me violently up and down using it's whole arm, roaring. My body flopped around painfully and I saw the darkness creeping back into my vision. I felt the wooden stick still in my hand and raised it as I was flung toward the ground, then jammed it down as my path reversed.

My spear sunk deep into the flesh of the wrist of the creature, and as I was raised, it let go, leaving me to fly streight up into the air with nothing but my spear. The flight seemed to take forever, but never seemed to take long enough. I could see globs of blood seeming to float beside me, but I couldn't tell if it was mine or the beast's. I felt myself stop raising and my body slowly turned in the air, leaving me to face the dusty, dry, hard ground. I looked and saw the spear in my hand as if from somewhere else, and looked back down at the monster clutching at it's bloody wrist in agony. I felt gravity retake me and suddenly, all my worry, all my pain, all my caring, was just gone. I slowly started descending toward the creature, but then I heard a scream. I turned my head, I saw the little kid that was looking up at me, wide eyed and open mouthed in terror. He knew as well as I that he would be next.

But he deserved better. He didn't deserve to die. Not like this. Not because I gave up.

I felt the wind whistling in my ears as I descended toward the monster. It had also heard the scream and was starting to shuffle in that direction. I tightened my grip on the spear and raised it above my head, letting out a bloodcurdling battle cry that cracking my throat and shaking my vocal cords. The monster looked up in surprise just as I plunged the spear to the hilt just above it's bloody eye.

My body bounced off the skull and smacked to the ground painfully. I stood painfully and looked the creature right in it's eye. It looked back with fear as the lights faded, and it collapsed to the ground, shaking the arena. I felt the darkness grip me once more, and my body buckled beneath me as I fell to the ground.

I stared at the sky, marveling at the calm surrounding me as my consciousness faded. I watched as a bird flew in from the clouds, getting closer and closer, wondering why it was so big and why it didn't flap it's wings. I saw it spit green fire and heard a roaring as it got nearer, like an engine...

Then darkness embraced me.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry for the wait on the last one and the shortness of this one. I figured that I should hurry this one along as compensation, but for fair warning, finals are coming up, and all the teachers decided that they are the only one giving homework, and so they all gave big-ass projects. I won't be able to write for a while because of this, so don't expect much in the near future. I'm sorry that there are such gaps between my posts, but it's out of my control now.<strong>

**Hopefully you enjoyed this. I tried to write it to the song Dance With the Devil by Breaking Benjamin, but about half way through, I got tired of listening to the song over and over, so I just went on with it.**

**Thank you for reading,**

**DisturbedFire**


	17. Rainbow of Death

Brightness.

Darkness.

I couldn't tell what I was seeing. The world seemed to be shining white, yet everything was dark. There was noise, but I couldn't make anything out. I couldn't feel my body, but I seemed to feel the world. It was peaceful, but it felt like the eye of a hurricane.

At first this is all I was. A blob of sensation in the vast realm of nothingness. Then I started to dream.

At first all I would see was a flash of color, just a glimpse and it was gone, then it started to creep in from the edges of my vision. My consciousness was a canvas of ever changing colors, bringing a dull senses of peace, panic, or anger. I watched the colors swirl lazily in my subconsciousness. They brought reason and life to my sphere of half-conciousness.

The rainbow of colors shimmered and circulated, circling like the liquid of a stirred pot. I watched lazily as they slowed and stopped, then started in the other direction. They swirled faster and faster, panicking my subconsciousness with its sudden violence. It twirled faster and faster, becoming a blurred circle, the colors becoming brown, and then suddenly it all sucked into a black sphere in the middle of the swirl. The sphere glowed black, but was webbed with pulsing blood-red veins. It seemed to hold immense power, which radiated off of it.

I felt a pinch in my brain and another stream of consciousness merged with my own. It was vast and dark, filled with cold anger. It sent a wave of feelings and pictures to my mind, making me realize that I was on the verge of death. It sent feelings of urgency and need, as well as pictures of myself, lying dead on the ground. My tired mind knew this was truth, but I was so tired. There was no way I would be able to wake myself up. I have enough trouble when I'm fully alive and well. My mind started to wander again, and the colors started swirling back out from behind the sphere. I enjoyed them, their calming dance, their soothing colors, the feeling of peace, and my mind started to slow down as it prepared for it's final sleep...

* * *

><p>Star Fox and the prisoner kid stood over the battered body of Kevin. His breathing was shallow and quick, and the gashes covering his body slowly oozed blood, which was soaking into the bandages wrapped around him. The medic bot was patching up the worst of the gashes, stitching up the deep ones, and smearing healing salve over all of them. The six companions watched in silence as the heart rate slowed and the brain activity started to diminish. Yet no tears were shed. He was new, and although he had been good to have on the team, nobody had really bonded with him except for Fox, and he had to stay strong for his friends.<p>

Fox eventually broke the silence, bringing the others from their silent contemplations.

"He was a good soldier," Fox said quietly, "I only regret not being able to fight beside him."

The others nodded, remembering the last moments of the battle with the Beast. The human had killed the beast, something almost unbelievable. Krystal sniffed once, and Fox stormed out of the room, breezing past the other prisoner, who was lying on the other medic bed, it's strong and steady pulse a bitter contrast to Kevin's.

The rest of the group lingered for a few moments, quietly paying respects to the dying warrior. The little kid was staring at his body silently. He hadn't spoken a word since being rescued.

The medic bot finished it's work and with a light beep, it folded away into the wall. The kid watched it incomprehensibly, far off in his own mind. He drifted away to the side of the other prisoner's bed, and after feeling their forehead, he drifted out after Fox. Krystal, having noticed his strange actions, went to see if he was doing Ok, as well as to get away from the dying person in front of her. Slippy and Falco followed a few minutes later, leaving a fading body behind.

* * *

><p>My mind got slower and slower, feeling more and more tired, and I felt at peace as thoughts faded and my life dimmed. I felt a breif nagging in the back of my mind, but I ignored it. I was ready. There was a warm void awaiting me, an endless rest, a deep peace. The feeling got stronger and stronger, almost feeling like a worm wriggling on my brain. It brought me to my senses slightly, as if arousing me from drowsiness. I tried to push it away, annoyed, but it persisted through my efforts. I felt a twitch in my pelvis - which was wierd, because I couldn't feel my body - and a spear of fire shot up through my belly and up my throat, piercing my brain with painfully pleasing force.<p>

My brain jolted into wakefulness, scrambling around with a strong sense of urgency and need. I immediately banished the colors to the Netherlands of my mind. I pushed against sleep and forced my tired body to continue. A trickle of warm sensation brushed against my consciousness, and when welcomed, a flood of pain and soreness flooded my sensitive mind.

I clenched my teeth and bore it, knowing that if I let go, I would die. I clenched my hand as hard as I could and made it close, but there wasn't very much pressure behind it. I surfaced my mind long enough to open my eyes before they fell shut again.

My inner struggle happened seemingly endlessly. I was fighting with everything I had, and I surfaced in and out of bodily consciousness repeatedly, twitching something, opening my eyes for a split second before all control left and all I knew of the outside world was the faint feeling I felt of my back against a soft bed. I was weary beyond belief, and was getting even more tired.

I felt my mind slip for a second, and with a pulsation of fear and surprise, I reached deep within myself and pushed harder than ever. I felt my pulse beat in my temple slowly, like a drum, and the noise in my erase became defending. My pelvis twitched once more, and I felt an indescribable warmth and strength seem to infuse with my very bones.

My eyes shot open and I forced the immense effort to sit up. As soon as I did, my whole body started responding once more. I felt my pulse start to speed up and my vision flashed and went dark before slowly fading in. I swing my feet over the edge of the bed, laying my feet on the ground, feeling the cold floor through the tatters of what was left of my shoes. I stood slowly, keeping my hands on the edge of the bed in case I wasn't strong enough or my vision blanked again.

After successfully propping myself onto my feet, I started to shuffle to the door.

* * *

><p>Star Fox and their rescued victim were sitting in the eating hall, small portions of untouched food sitting in front of each of them. Even Slippy, who was known for his ginormous appetite, hadn't touched his food. Fox and Falco were discussing how to get revenge for their fallen comrade, Slippy was throwing in some suggestions here and there, while Krystal tried to get the little cat to eat the food that he was staring at so glumly. They had been in this room for a few hours since leaving the nearly dead human in the infirmary.<p>

"There's no way we can fight them in a head on battle!" Fox suddenly yelled, breaking the silence of the mostly quiet room, "Did you see all the cannons that they were firing at us on our way out?"

"Yeah, I did bozo," Falco yelled back, "An' I'm telling you, I could take out most of those motherfuckers by myself if you had the balls to let me!"

Everybody's attention was drawn by this commotion, and nobody noticed as a deflated looking figure shuffled his way to the table.

"This isn't about you!" Fox yelled, standing up and slamming his hands on the table, "Why can't you pull your head out of your ass long enough to see that!"

"DON'T. TALK TO ME. ABOUT HAVING THINGS. UP MY ASS." Falco bellowed, standing up and getting right in Fox's face.

"HEY! JUST BECAUSE–"

"Guys? Guys? GUYS? GUYS?!" Slippy piped up, his high pitched voice drawing Falco's anger.

"SON OF A BITCH SLIP–"

"MY MOM WAS NOT A BITCH!" Fox howled, cutting him off.

"I WASN'T TALKING TO YOU ASS HOLE!"

"Guys?"

The room suddenly got deathly quiet as the shriveled looking human made himself known at the table. He eased down into a chair and pulled the nearest plate to him.

"I've got a massive headache right now that you wouldn't believe. Could you all please be a little quieter?" he rasped quietly.

Everyone stared at him, open mouthed and speechless as he mumbled a brief thank you and started eating.

* * *

><p><strong>Hey guys. Finals are over! Woohoo!<strong>

**So I started this chapter with no real goal in mind, and that's why it's so short. I now have a vague idea of where I want to go. I know it's been forever since I started asking, but I'm still not sure if I want to make Kevin Anthro or not, but I promise, I will tally votes and make a decision by next chapter. Sorry for my shortness of chapters, but honestly, I wanted to have this split into two, leaving some kind of cliff hanger when Kevin seemed like he was going to die. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, and I hope I can get another chapter up soon, assuming the teachers don't start piling on the homework soon.**

**DisturbedFire**


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